Dive Brief:
- Kroger, the nation's largest pure-play grocery company, said it will hire 20,000 new workers -- boosting the number of employees by 5.3%.
- Details of the hires are few. No timeline was announced, nor is it clear how many jobs will go to Kroger stores and how many to other chains owed by the company: City Market, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter and King Soopers.
- The move comes as Kroger continues to grow and expand. Analysts expect the company to report a 10% rise in revenue when it reports earnings for the most recent quarter on Thursday.
Dive Insight:
The only thing surprising about Kroger these days is how unsurprising it is for the company to announce shockingly good numbers, acquisition after acquisition and expansion after expansion. But every silver lining has a cloud: There's a risk for Kroger that Wall Street -- which simply adores the company these days -- will react badly when the company inevitably does something less than perfectly.