{"id":22383,"date":"2024-01-19T20:14:02","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T14:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/macys-to-cut-more-than-2300-jobs-and-close-five-stores\/"},"modified":"2024-01-19T20:14:02","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T14:44:02","slug":"macys-to-cut-more-than-2300-jobs-and-close-five-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/macys-to-cut-more-than-2300-jobs-and-close-five-stores\/","title":{"rendered":"Macy’s to cut more than 2,300 jobs and close five stores"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Macy\u2019s\u00a0on Thursday said it will cut about 3.5% of its workforce and close five of its namesake mall locations as the legacy department store moves to\u00a0trim costs\u00a0and\u00a0turn around slowing sales.<\/p>\n

The move will affect approximately 2,350 positions across its corporate office and stores, company spokesman Chris Grams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we prepare to deploy a new strategy to meet the needs of an everchanging consumer and marketplace, we made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by 3.5% to become a more streamlined company,\u201d the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The company notified employees about the layoffs on Thursday and the last day for affected employees will be Jan. 26.<\/p>\n

Stores that will be shuttered are located in Arlington, Virginia; San Leandro, California; Lihue, Hawaii; Simi Valley, California and Tallahassee, Florida. The stores will close in early 2024, Grams added.<\/p>\n

Macy\u2019s is the middle of an effort to turn the roughly 166-year-old department store into a brand that resonates with consumers who are shopping online; looking for value; and\u00a0turning to competitors including e-commerce retailers such as Amazon and Shein, big-box players such as Target and off-price names such as TJX-owned T.J. Maxx instead of its stores.<\/p>\n

As part of that push, Macy\u2019s is\u00a0overhauling its private-label brands; opening\u00a0smaller shops outside of the mall; and looking to its beauty chain, Bluemercury, and higher-end department store, Bloomingdale\u2019s, to drive growth.<\/p>\n

In the fall, the company said it\u00a0would open up to 30 smaller stores\u00a0in strip malls over the next two years. Macy\u2019s has been better known for giant mall stores, but the company is trying to chase consumers in the suburbs who are going to outdoor shopping centers a short drive away for groceries or a new outfit.<\/p>\n

Macy\u2019s, the parent company that includes its namesake brand, Bloomingdale\u2019s and Bluemercury, will also get a new leader soon. Tony Spring, CEO of Bloomingdale\u2019s, will step into the CEO role for Macy\u2019s in early February as\u00a0outgoing CEO Jeff Gennette retires.<\/p>\n

On the company\u2019s earnings call in October, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer Adrian Mitchell hinted that Macy\u2019s would take another hard look at its stores.\u00a0<\/strong>He said the company had to \u201cdeliver relevant products, strong value and a more enjoyable shopping experience,\u201d and some of that would include \u201coptimizing our physical footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u00a0are\u00a0committed\u00a0to\u00a0bringing\u00a0more\u00a0inspiration\u00a0on\u00a0a\u00a0daily\u00a0basis\u00a0to\u00a0our\u00a0customers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe look forward to sharing more on how that ladders to long-term profitable growth on our fourth quarter call.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell also told investors on the call that Macy\u2019s \u201canticipated closure of less than 10 locations in early 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, Macy\u2019s sales and stock performance have lagged. The company has not yet reported its holiday quarter, but\u00a0said in October\u00a0that it expected same-store sales to decline up to 7% for its fiscal 2023. It\u2019s expected to report fiscal fourth-quarter earnings in late February.<\/p>\n

Shares of the company closed Thursday at $17.93, down nearly 11% so far this year. That compares to the roughly flat performance of the S&P 500 during the same period.<\/p>\n

Macy\u2019s has 723 locations across the country, as of Oct. 28, the end of the most recently reported quarter. The majority of those \u2014 roughly 500 \u2014 are its namesake stores, followed by 158 Bluemercury stores and 56 Bloomingdale\u2019s stores.<\/p>\n

The department store chain\u2019s footprint has gotten smaller in recent years, however. About four years ago, Macy\u2019s\u00a0announced another major layoff and wave of store closures. It made the announcement in February 2020, just weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic led to lockdowns and the temporary shuttering of many malls and retail stores across the country.<\/p>\n

At the time, Macy\u2019s said it would shut 125 stores over the following three years and slash about 2,000 corporate jobs, as it closed its Cincinnati headquarters and tech offices in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

The company is reconsidering its store count again.<\/p>\n

In March 2023, Gennette said the company was \u201cevaluating the right number and mix of on- and off-mall locations,\u201d and added that the customer and retail backdrop had changed since the February 2020 announcement. He said since that 2020 announcement, Macy\u2019s had closed about 80 namesake locations and had plans to soon close another five.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have shuttered our most significant underperformers, exited dying centers and improved the existing store experience, while delaying closures of others that are cash flow positive,\u201d he said on the March call. \u201cToday, roughly 99% of our mall base is profitable on a four-wall basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news on Thursday was first reported by\u00a0The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[ad_1] Macy\u2019s\u00a0on Thursday said it will cut about 3.5% of its workforce and close five of its namesake mall locations as the legacy department store moves to\u00a0trim costs\u00a0and\u00a0turn around slowing sales. The move will affect approximately 2,350 positions across its corporate office and stores, company spokesman Chris Grams said. \u201cAs we prepare to deploy a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}