Walmart is building the future of American healthcare — here’s how they plan to train Americans for those jobs

By Rachel Carlson, Guild Education CEO & Co-Founder

At Guild, we’re constantly thinking about how to help our students prepare for jobs of the future. With that future lens, it should come as no surprise that we spend much of our time thinking about the healthcare industry, which is growing faster than any other occupation in the U.S. Our country needs 1.9 million new workers trained for healthcare roles between now and 2028, according to the Department of Labor and Statistics.

If anyone is up to the task of upskilling America’s workforce to fill these in-demand healthcare jobs, it’s the country’s largest employer — Walmart. Walmart employs more than 40,000 associates who work in its more than 5,000 retail pharmacies, 3,000 vision centers and 400 hearing centers, as well as the new Walmart Health center in Georgia.

As Walmart’s Chief Medical Officer, Thomas Van Gilder shared — “Our presence in thousands of communities gives us a unique opportunity to provide access to affordable healthcare to millions of people, but we need expertly trained associates in order to do so. As our health and wellness strategy and offerings continue to evolve, Live Better U will play a critical role in preparing our 1.5 million associates for future work opportunities in the field.”

Starting today, Walmart’s 1.5 million U.S. associates are able to pursue programs ranging from healthcare administration and management to pharmacy technician and optician career diplomas. This is an important expansion of Walmart’s Live Better U education benefits program, which offers dozens of academic programs and degrees — at a cost of only $1 per day to associates — with programs ranging from business and supply chain to cyber-security and information technology.

Through new offerings like the Purdue Global bachelor’s degree in health care administration, Walmart associates now have the chance to obtain the skills, knowledge, and experience needed to tackle the critical problem of how best to deliver healthcare in this country, and how to do so at an affordable price. Associates are also able to apply for bachelor’s degrees in health care management and health and wellness through some of Guild’s other leading academic partners, including Southern New Hampshire University, Wilmington University, Penn Foster and Bellevue University.

This latest expansion of Live Better U embodies Walmart’s commitment to employee development, and also its commitment to the local communities it serves. All of us at Guild are honored to partner with Walmart in this next chapter of Live Better U, and hopefully the next chapter of increased access to quality, affordable healthcare for more Americans.