Is Kroger planning to cut 3,000 jobs over 3 years and move some to India? What we know

In October, social media posts claimed grocery giant Kroger is planning to replace 3,000 U.S. workers with a combination of artificial intelligence tools and outsourced workers in India.

Snopes readers contacted us asking whether the claims were true.

We found solid secondary evidence suggesting they are true, but because we could not independently verify them with primary evidence, we leave this claim unrated for now.

Is Kroger laying off 3,000 workers?

Bloomberg and Reuters, both reliable sources for business news, separately reported the claim that Kroger plans to lay off roughly 3,000 workers. In turn, the outlets sourced the news to a company memo they viewed that CEO Greg Foran, who joined Kroger in February, wrote. We reached out to Kroger for additional information but had not received a reply by the time of publication. 

The reports say the layoffs, which would affect approximately 37% of Kroger’s 8,200 corporate employees, will be spread out over three years, but the exact details have not yet been determined. They also note the layoffs were part of a larger shift at Kroger toward adopting more artificial intelligence tools into its workflows. Foran’s memo reportedly says the company needs to cut duplicative work while adapting to new technologies, which would allow the grocery chain to reduce prices ⁠and invest in in-store staff.

Snopes has not been able to view the memo so cannot independently verify its contents. The company has not appeared to refute the above reports, as of this writing.

Is Kroger outsourcing jobs to India?

At least one social media post notes that Foran — a Walmart executive from 2014 to 2019, who Bloomberg said helped “turn around Walmart’s US business” — has a history of outsourcing roles to India.

While Foran was at Walmart, the company announced it was outsourcing its “finance and accounting back-office operations” to Genpact, an outsourcing company founded in India as a subsidiary of General Electric. (It is unclear to what extent Foran was involved in this decision.)

The claim about Kroger outsourcing jobs ultimately originates from a July 2026 LinkedIn post from Brittain Ladd, who describes himself as a “business strategist and consultant.” His post cites “sources from Kroger.” The Cincinnati Business Courier and The Charlotte Observer picked up and recirculated Ladd’s analysis in July and August, respectively. Snopes attempted to contact Ladd but he did not reply before publication. (We relied on Ladd’s post and the Observer’s reporting for our investigation, as the Courier’s coverage was paywalled.)

According to Ladd, the idea for Kroger’s new global capability center (a euphemism for an outsourced office) was initially floated in 2019, long before Foran’s entrance, but it was put on hold while the company pursued a merger with Albertsons, because “pursuing mass layoffs during [a Federal Trade Commission] antitrust review would have been reckless.” That proposed merger fell apart in December 2024. Since then, Kroger has actively worked to implement its outsourcing plan. 

The Observer reported that multiple Kroger executives, including Foran and Chief Financial Officer David Kennerley, have repeatedly mentioned the center during quarterly earnings calls as an opportunity to save costs. “We need to operate more efficiently,” Foran reportedly said during the June 2026 call. “That means fewer organizational layers, smarter ways of working, standing up our Kroger capability center and applying AI across the business.”

The Observer also found a July LinkedIn post from GCC ERA, a website helping fill outsourced positions in India, announcing that Kroger Technology & Digital was outsourcing roles to the country. According to that post, at least some jobs at Kroger are being outsourced to India. 

Sources