Here are Pinal County’s top 3 private employers

Lucid Motors, the sleek luxury electric-vehicle manufacturer based in Casa Grande, is Pinal County’s top employer with 2,500 on staff, a company spokesman said Friday.

Walmart, the megastore chain that brings joy to customers through deep discounts on tall shelves of merchandise, has recently moved up to the second highest number of employees in Pinal County.

The superstore chain’s spokesman said the company’s stores and distribution centers in Pinal County now employ 2,400 staffers, or associates as the Arkansas-based retailer famously calls them.

The Maricopa Walmart staffs 400, said Matt Joyner, U.S. People Communications director with Walmart Corporate Affairs. That makes it the second biggest of four stores in the county.

The “Save more, live better” store has moved up a notch ahead of CoreCivic, the private prison operations management company, with 2,375 employees in Pinal County.

Casa Grande, with its supercenter and twin distribution facilities, has the highest number of Walmart associates in the county. There are 950 distribution center employees between the two warehouses, and 450 superstore associates.

The Coolidge store has 250 associates and there are 350 Walmart associates working at the Apache Junction store.

“We don’t just do business in communities around the country; we’re a part of them,” said Joyner. “We believe that to be a great place to shop, we need to be a great place to work, and that philosophy informs all that we do in Pinal County and beyond.”

Joyner said while there are no plans to remodel any Walmart stores in Maricopa or the rest of county, the Coolidge store was recently remodeled and given a “Re-Grand Opened.”

Coolidge’s store was one of 117 remodeled and re-opened stores in October, part of a half-billion-dollar company investment.

“While we don’t have specific plans for further remodels in Pinal County at this time, we do have hundreds of remodels planned for this year,” Joyner said. “Our realty teams conduct frequent reviews to ensure our facilities provide a great customer and associate experience.”

Phoenix commercial developer Thompson Thrift told InMaricopa this week it is actively engaging Walmart in conversations regarding future development in Maricopa.

Laura Loiacono, Pinal County Economic Development Department’s data analyst, was taken aback when a reporter informed her of Walmart’s claim to have 2,400 Pinal employees.

“I would say they are among the top employers,” she said, adding that her data didn’t indicate Walmart had that many associates.

Pulling from her source, Maricopa Association of Governments, Loiacono said her numbers from 2022 showed Walmart rated third-highest employer in the county at 2,200 employees.