The parent of Sears and Kmart recently eliminated about 200 jobs in another round of layoffs by the struggling retail company.
The layoffs affected various business units and roles, with about 150 job losses at Sears Holdings’ support center in Hoffman Estates, the company said Wednesday.
In January, Sears Holdings laid off about 220 workers from its corporate offices.
The company announced plans in May to close another 72 stores, including six stores in Illinois. The beleaguered retailer said then it had identified about 100 stores that were no longer turning a profit.
Chairman and CEO Eddie Lampert sent a companywide message to associates on June 26:
As we work to advance our strategic transformation, we all know that we must return the company to profitability in order to retain the confidence of our constituents. This means continuing to look at ways to streamline our operations while staying focused on our Best Members, Best Categories and Best Stores. Today, we made the very difficult decision to eliminate a number of positions across various business units and roles. While these changes didn’t impact a large percentage of our workforce, your leadership team and I want you to know that these decisions were not taken lightly or easily. We are grateful for the contributions of these associates and we are committed to treating them with compassion and respect during this challenging time, including offering severance and outplacement assistance to make career transitions easier for all who are eligible. Having co-workers and friends leave the organization is never easy, but making changes like these are a necessary part of creating a stronger organization in this time of industry disruption. We continue to fight every day to improve the performance of Sears Holdings — and you are central to that effort. I ask everyone to remain focused on the OKRs you set for the quarter as your goals can have a direct impact on our company’s transformation. By building meaningful relationships with our members — who look to us for our brands, our services and convenience — we can drive sales and put our company on the right path for the future. Thank you for your continued commitment to Sears Holdings.
