Walgreens vs. Amazon: A Dow Jones Story

Walgreens, the “pharmacy America trusts,” was booted this week from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the first reshuffle of the index’s 30 first-string players in almost six years.

On its face, the change was prompted by another Dow constituent, Walmart, splitting its stock–this called for a heavier heavyweight to rebalance the average, which is weighted by stock price. Enter Amazon: tech titan and retailer par excellence, with a surging share of the DTC pharmacy business to boot. The announcement from Dow owner, S&P Global, explains the index change was “prompted by…Walmart’s decision to split its stock,” but shows its hand by aligning the shakeup with “the evolving nature of the American economy.”

Tech is King and Amazon one of its leading Princes; with its induction into the Dow, the index will more accurately reflect the performance of the stock market at large. The economic evolution that makes Amazon a winner and puts Walgreens on the bench is borne out in the companies’ active job listings over the last year. In data visualizations below, you’ll see a side-by-side of jobs added (green), jobs removed (orange), and active listings (navy) at both retailers. Even at this most macro level of the LinkUp data offering, the story is clear: big tech is in, and legacy firms are in trouble.

Keep ahead of the company curve with LinkUp jobs data. And stay tuned for more of our Notes from The Evidence Lab, where we showcase the engaging interface and unmatched specificity of our job market dataset.

Fig. 1. WALGREENS daily active listings over last year:

Fig. 2. AMAZON daily listings over last year:

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