Question

The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart Stores Inc. is planning to lay off employees at its Sam's Club warehouse unit. Approximately half of the layoffs will be hourly employees (The Wall Street Journal, January 25-26, 2014). Suppose the following data represent the percentage of hourly employees laid off for Sam's Club stores. 55 56 44 43 44 56 60 62 57 45 36 38 50 69 65 a. Compute the mean and median percentage of hourly employees being laid off at these stores.

Answer 1

The mean percentage of hourly employees being laid off at these stores is 52.

The median percentage of hourly employees being laid off at these stores is 55.

Explanation:

Mean:

Sum of all values divided by the number of values.

So

`M = (55+56+44+43+44+56+60+62+57+45+36+38+50+69+65)/(15) = 52`

The mean percentage of hourly employees being laid off at these stores is 52.

Median:

Value that separate the lower 50% from the upper 50% in the sorted set.

The sorted set is

36 38 43 44 44 45 50 55

The set has cardinality 15, which is an odd number, so the median is the element at the position (15+1)/2 = 8 of the sorted set, which is 55.

The median percentage of hourly employees being laid off at these stores is 55.