Walmart can pay for employees in these areas to switch to different main workplaces, equivalent to San Bruno, Calif., or the corporate’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. The corporate hopes to relocate a lot of the employees, and a few will probably be allowed to change into full-time distant employees, a spokeswoman mentioned. Those that depart will probably be given severance pay, she mentioned.

“We’ve made the choice to focus our tech crew’s presence inside choose areas,” mentioned the spokeswoman. Rival

Amazon.com Inc.

and different giant know-how corporations have not too long ago introduced plans to chop hundreds of jobs.

As well as, most of Walmart’s world know-how employees will must be of their assigned workplace not less than two days every week, Mr. Kumar mentioned within the memo. Many employees in Walmart’s Bentonville company headquarters have been required to work in-person 5 days every week since final yr.

The shift is an indication that even for know-how corporations that earlier within the pandemic embraced distant work, in-person work and central workplaces will play a task going ahead.

Activision Blizzard Inc.,

writer of videogames equivalent to “Name of Obligation,” on Monday turned the most recent firm to step up its in-office coverage, notifying some workers that they would want to report back to workplaces three days every week starting in April.

The sport big’s transfer follows that of

Walt Disney Co.

, which mentioned it might require employees to return to its workplaces 4 days every week starting in March. Different employers, together with monetary big Vanguard Group, have pushed workers in latest weeks to stick to current hybrid-work schedules, usually at three days every week.

Final yr, Walmart’s Mr. Kumar introduced plans to open new tech hubs in Atlanta and Toronto and plans so as to add hundreds extra workers to his crew, which he mentioned was round 20,000 folks globally. Earlier than the closures, the corporate had 11 tech hubs within the U.S. and 6 overseas, in keeping with its web site.

Walmart has about 1.7 million U.S. employees, the bulk hourly workers in shops and warehouses, and about 0.6 million different workers overseas. It not too long ago introduced plans to boost its minimal U.S. retailer wages, amid a good job marketplace for hourly employees.

Earlier within the pandemic, Mr. Kumar informed its company know-how workers that distant work would stick round longer than in different elements of the group. The group aimed to make “digital work the brand new regular for World Know-how,” Mr. Kumar mentioned in a LinkedIn publish within the spring of 2020. “We’ve determined that whilst restrictions are lifted and different teams in Walmart ultimately return to their workplaces, we are going to take our time, and take into consideration how we are able to invent the workspace of the longer term.”

— Chip Cutter contributed to this text.

Write to Sarah Nassauer at Sarah.Nassauer@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
Walmart Inc. has round 1.7 million U.S. employees and a couple of.3 million complete workers. A earlier model of this text incorrectly mentioned Walmart had 1.3 million U.S. employees and about 1 million abroad. (Corrected on Feb. 13)