Labor & Employment

Boston -- The Wilder Companies announced new hires and promotions.

North Plainfield, N.J. -- Levin Management announced a series of promotions and new hires to support continued growth and expansion in 2016.

“This is an exciting time for our company,” noted Matthew K. Harding, president for Levin. “We ended 2015 on a very positive note, and expect this momentum to continue throughout 2016. Our internal promotions and new staff additions ensure that we will consistently meet, and exceed, client expectations as we strengthen Levin’s presence in key markets throughout the Northeast.”

Dollar Tree on Tuesday credited sales at its Family Dollar division as helping to boost the company’s overall results for the fourth quarter. But the increase still fell short of analysts expectations.

Sales for the quarter ended Jan. 30 totaled $5.37 billion, a 116.7% increase from the year-ago period but still less than expected. The boost in revenue was the result of $2.68 billion in sales from the Family Dollar segment.

A new form of wage theft has recently been identified, where employers misclassify employees’ schedules in order to shift the business expenses associated with scheduling to the employee. Illegal misclassification schemes have been around for decades. A common example is an employer misclassifying an employee’s job title, so that the employee is a salaried employee, in order to avoid paying the employee overtime. Here, the employers are misclassifying the employee’s schedules, instead of the employee’s job title, to avoid paying reporting time premiums.

Efforts to rework its distribution process netted big wins in the second quarter for AutoZone, which reported increases in same-store sales and profit.

The auto parts retailer posted net sales of $2.3 billion for its second quarter ended Feb. 13, an increase of 5.3% from the second quarter of fiscal 2015. Same-store sales increased 3.6% for the quarter. Net income for the quarter increased 8% over the same period last year to $228.6 million, while diluted earnings per share increased 14.2% to $7.43 per share from $6.51 per share in the year-ago quarter.

Lumber Liquidators on Monday announced the appointment of Dennis Knowles as COO, effective March 1, 2016.

Knowles has served in store operations leadership roles at Lowe's Companies since 2001, most recently as chief store operations officer, and prior to that as senior VP of store operations support and specialty sales and its senior VP of store operations for Lowe's West and South Central Divisions, respectively.

Target Corp. is hiring Arthur Valdez, a 16-year veteran of Amazon.com, as executive VP, chief supply chain and logistics officer.

Valdez will lead Target’s supply chain transformation including planning, distribution and transportation. He will report to Target’s executive VP and COO John Mulligan.

Perhaps no other retailer is profiting as well from Americans' changing eating habits than Sprouts Farmers Market, which reported record sales and earnings for the fourth quarter.

The Arizona-based grocer said that same store sales during the period ended Jan. 3 rose 7.4%. Net income was $28.2 million and diluted earnings per share were 18 cents. Net sales were $3.59 billion, a 21% increase compared to reported net sales in 2014. Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.86, a 19% increase from 2014.