ISSAQUAH, WA--(Marketwire - November 10, 2010) - Costco Wholesale Corporation ("Costco" or the "Company") (
Costco Japan received both a Corporation Award for the Promotion of Gender Equality and a Family Friendly Corporation Award. These are Excellence Awards from the Director General of the Prefectural Labour Bureau, given to companies that ensure equal opportunities and treatment for men and women, and promote work-life balance for their employees. Costco Japan was recognized as a role model for its focus on equal opportunity, its open-door policy, its code of ethics that includes taking care of employees, and its "Journeys" program, which provides professional development and networking opportunities for female employees worldwide.
Ken Theriault, Costco's Country Manager for Japan, accepted the award on behalf of the Company. "We are committed to doing business in Japan just as we are everywhere at Costco globally, by offering our employees equal opportunities, including gender equality, and a great place to work," Theriault said. "We are very honored to receive these awards in Japan as a recognition of what we do every day."
Costco operates an international chain of membership warehouses that carry quality, name-brand and related private-label merchandise at substantially lower prices than are typically found at conventional wholesale or retail sources. The Company currently operates 577 warehouses, including 420 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 80 in Canada, 22 in the United Kingdom, seven in Korea, six in Taiwan, nine in Japan, one in Australia and 32 in Mexico. The Company also operates Costco Online, an electronic commerce web site, at www.costco.com and at www.costco.ca in Canada. Costco has more than 60 million Costco cardholders and 152,000 employees worldwide, and reported sales of $76.3 billion for the past fiscal year ended August 29, 2010.
Certain statements contained in this document constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For these purposes, forward-looking statements are statements that address activities, events, conditions or developments that the Company expects or anticipates may occur in the future. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, domestic and international economic conditions including exchange rates, the effects of competition and regulation, uncertainties in the financial markets, consumer and small business spending patterns and debt levels, conditions affecting the acquisition, development, ownership or use of real estate, actions of vendors, rising costs associated with employees (including health care and workers' compensation costs), rising costs associated with the acquisition of merchandise (including the direct and indirect effects of the rising cost of petroleum-based products and fuel and energy costs), geopolitical conditions and other risks identified from time to time in the Company's public statements and reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Contact Information:
CONTACTS:
Costco Wholesale Corporation
Jim Murphy
425/427-7347