Walmart remains by far the world’s largest retailer by revenue and the largest U.S. seller of groceries, but the company has joined other firms in lowering 2025 expectations for sales and profits amid economic uncertainties.

Executives of the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer, considered a bellwether for the industry, warned Thursday that its sales will grow 4% this year as profits rise 5.5% on an annual basis, falling short of analyst expectations.

Walmart is expecting a relatively stable macroeconomic environment in 2025, but there are “uncertainties related to consumer behavior and global economic and geopolitical conditions,” Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told analysts during a quarterly earnings call.

Other analysts and corporate leaders have expressed concerns about the effects of new and pending U.S. tariffs on imported goods, which could further raise consumer prices that are already elevated by recent historical standards. Fitch Ratings analyst David Silverman said in a research note that “retail choppiness” could continue in 2025, citing recent declines in consumer sentiment tied to renewed concerns over inflation.

Walmart reported revenue rose 4.1% from a year earlier in the fourth quarter and 5.1% for all of 2024 at its 10,750 stores across 19 countries. The company’s recent real estate moves included the purchase of an entire retail mall near Pittsburgh.

Initial claims for U.S. unemployment insurance rose in the week ended Feb. 15, as analysts watched for potential long-term effects from ongoing federal government job reductions totaling more than 200,000 this year. Agency pullbacks have already spurred plans by the Trump administration to exit nearly 100 federal office leases.

There were 219,000 initial jobless claims, an increase of 5,000 from the prior week’s revised level, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week moving average was 215,250, down 1,000 from the previous week’s revised average and staying within the range of 200,000 to 250,000 weekly initial claims for the past year.

Oxford Economics' lead U.S. economist, Nancy Vanden Houten, said the latest initial claims “were a touch higher than expected,” though continued claims appear to be trending slightly lower in recent weeks.

“Layoffs of federal workers pose some downside risk to our forecast for the labor market this year,” Vanden Houten said in a statement Thursday. “It is too soon for these layoffs to be reflected in the claims data, but we will be monitoring the claims figures in the weeks ahead for federal workers for an indication of the magnitude of these layoffs.”