Labor & Employment

Bentonville, Ark. – Gearing up for the holidays, Wal-Mart announced that it expects to promote more than 160,000 associates to jobs with higher pay and more responsibility this year, including 25,000 promotions during its fourth quarter.

Canton, Mass. – Dunkin’ Donuts has signed a multi-unit store development agreement with new franchise group, HT2 Franchising, LLC, to develop nine new restaurants throughout Reno, Nev. The first restaurant is expected to open in 2015 and the remainder by 2020.

With this agreement, Dunkin' Donuts franchise opportunities are sold out in Reno, but opportunities exist to grow the brand throughout the West in Colorado and California.

New York -- Looking ahead, there is a sense of pessimism on the economy in the next few months among U.S. consumers. In September 2013, Harris Poll results showed that almost half of U.S. adults (46%) said, in the coming year, that they expect the economy to stay the same, while less than one-quarter (22%) expected it to improve and one-third (32%) expected it to get worse.

Fortune Brands Home & Security, a leading home and security products company, has named Jason Baab as VP of mergers and acquisitions. His role will support the company’s growth strategy that includes expanding its portfolio.

The company also promoted Elif Sagsen-Ercel to VP of strategy. Baab and Sagsen-Ercel will report to Chuck Elias who was elected by FBHS earlier this year as SVP of strategy and corporate development.

Amazon.com is finalizing plans to open a new 1.2 million-sq.-ft. fulfillment center in Moreno Valley, Calif., which will create more than 1,000 full-time jobs ahead of the holiday shopping season.

This will be Amazon’s fourth fulfillment center in the state. The company’s other sites are located in Patterson, San Bernardino and Tracy.

Sears Holdings is considering spinning off its Lands’ End and Sears Auto Center brands as part of a wide-ranging strategic review of its business. The company’s Sears Canada subsidiary has also sold five Canadian store leases to Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited for about $383.4 million.

Toronto -- Hudson’s Bay Company has appointed Michael Crotty as executive VP, chief marketing officer, Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor. He will be responsible for the overall marketing strategy for Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor.

Crotty has more than 25 years multichannel retailing and brand management marketing experience  For the last 10 years, he has held progressively senior positions at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and, most recently, Nordstrom.

New York -- Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. has named board member Daniel W. Dienst, who most recently served as CEO of Sims Metal Management, as CEO. The position has been vacant since December, when chief executive since Lisa Gersh left the media and merchandising company.

Dienst served as chairman and CEO of Metal Management Ltd. from 2003 to 2008, when it was sold to Sims. He then took the helm at the newly combined company.

New York – Larry Kirshbaum, a publishing industry executive who joined Amazon.com’s New York-based publishing unit in 2011, is reportedly leaving the company to become a literary agent. According to the Associated Press, Kirshbaum, who formerly was in charge of the Time Warner Book Group will officially leave his position in January 2014.