Best Buy To Cut 400 Jobs, But No Store Closures Right Now

With only days to go until company founder Richard Schulze makes his case to the board for buying the company back, Best Buy’s new-ish CEO Hubert Joly is moving full-steam-ahead with his plan to restructure the company, announcing that 400 employees will soon no longer be employees.

According to Best Buy, the staff cuts are part of $150 million savings in SG&A (selling, general, and administrative) costs. But this does not mean that there will be 400 fewer blue shirts roaming the floors of the nation’s Best Buy stores, as the company says all of these cuts are happening at Best Buy HQ in Richfield, MN.

This is just the first step in Joly’s “Renew Blue” project, which ultimately hopes to cut $725 million in costs from the retailer’s budget. In a statement, Best Buy says there will be more cost cuts announced later this year.

And though Best Buy did recently — and suddenly — shutter a number of stores in Canada, the company says the round of cost cuts announced this morning does not include any store closings or reduction in the number of retail staff.

Today’s news comes shortly after Consumerist (with the help of Best Buy tipsters) revealed that the retailer is changing its return policy from 30 days to 15 days as part of its upcoming Low-Price Guarantee program that offers price-matching on a number of competing bricks-and-mortar and online competitors.

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