As e-commerce giant Amazon and major grocery chains across the country crowd into the meal kit service arena, it seems Blue Apron may be feeling the heat: The meal kit company announced Wednesday that it’s laying off 6% of its workforce as part of a companywide “realignment” effort. [More]
layoffs
Sears Laying Off 400 Employees At HQ In Addition To Store Closures
By 6.13.17
Last week, we learned that Sears Holdings, parent company of Kmart and Sears, was planning to close a few dozen more stores as part of its ongoing “transformation” from a nationwide retailer into a handful of appliance showrooms and an online rewards points scheme. Today, the company announced more cuts among staff at its headquarters outside of Chicago, eliminating 400 positions. [More]
J. Crew Eliminating 250 Jobs In Effort To Cut Costs
By 4.25.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
A few weeks after shaking things up with the abrupt exit of its creative director, more changes are afoot at J.Crew: The company announced today that it would be cutting about 250 jobs as it tries to cut costs amid struggling sales. [More]
Payless Delays Severance Pay For Employees Until At Least May 9
By 4.12.17
Employees of Payless ShoeSource who lost their jobs before the company’s bankruptcy filing have received some really difficult news: They won’t be receiving their severance payments for at least another month, as the company waits for its next hearing in federal bankruptcy court. [More]
Kmart Lays Off More Employees, Turns Sales Floor Into Big Pile Of Boxes
By 1.27.17
The apparent inescapable death spiral of Sears continued last week when the retailer laid off an unspecified number of full-time employees from its Kmart stores. [More]
Whole Foods Closes Regional Kitchens, Says It Isn’t Related To Sanitation Problems
By 1.25.17
For prepared food items in its stores along the East Coast, Whole Foods uses regional kitchens, each of which cooks various in-house items and distributes them to dozens of stores. The company recently announced that it’s closing the facilities in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia, for reasons that have nothing to do with past sanitation issues in one of them. Nope. [More]
American Apparel Confirms It Might Lay Off 3,500 Workers Next Month
By 12.6.16
After earlier reports that hundreds of American Apparel workers were told they would be out of a job next month, the struggling retailer confirmed on Monday that it had sent notices to almost 3,500 employees warning them of potential layoffs. [More]
Former ITT Employees Sue Over Sudden Closures
By 9.7.16
While it was no doubt a shock for 40,000 ITT Technical Institute students to learn they no longer had a place to pursue their education, 8,000 employees of the company also lost their jobs. Now some of those laid-off workers have sued for-profit operator ITT Educational Services for failing to give them adequate notice their jobs would be eliminated. [More]
American Apparel Laying Off Hundreds Of Workers, May Outsource Some Manufacturing
By 4.13.16
As part of its continuing efforts to streamline costs and transform into a newer, leaner company after emerging from bankruptcy, a new report says American Apparel has slashed hundreds of jobs in its Southern California home recently, and may make some clothing outside of Los Angeles as part of an overall redesign of the production process. [More]
Staples Cuts Jobs In Preparation For Life With Or Without Office Depot Merger
By 1.26.16
It appears that Staples is adhering to the adage, “hope for the best, prepare for the worst,” when it comes to their challenged billion-dollar merger with rival Office Depot. This week, the retailer took steps to streamline its operation, changing its management team and reportedly laying off hundreds of employees at its headquarters. [More]
Sprint To Lay Off 2,000 Customer Service Employees
By 1.26.16
Sprint’s recent promotions, including “iPhone for Life” and the promise to cut customers’ bills from other carriers in half have helped the fourth-place carrier, gaining it 500,000 new postpaid subscribers even accounting for customers who have left. The company is responding to the good news by laying off 2,000 customer service representatives in centers across the country, and directing customers to use the self-service app instead. [More]
Chipotle’s Woes Reportedly Leading To Layoffs At Suppliers
By 1.21.16
Chipotle’s recent foodborne illness issues — a six-state e.coli contamination that sickened more than 50 people and a norvirus outbreak that left more than 150 customers ill in Boston — haven’t just caused problems for the fast casual restaurant in terms of slumping sales and dropping stock prices, it’s also reportedly trickled down the chain to the company’s suppliers in the form of layoffs. [More]
Amazon Lays Off Engineers Behind Fire Phone, Reorganizes Hardware Division
By 8.27.15
You’ve probably never heard of Lab126, but you’ve definitely heard of their parent company and their products. They’re a division of Amazon, started in Silicon Valley eleven years ago to create the e-reader that we now know as the Kindle. They also created some projects that haven’t caught on quite as well, like the Fire Phone, and engineers who worked on that projects have reportedly been sent on their way. [More]
One Year After Merger, Men’s Wearhouse Announces Layoffs At Jos. A. Bank HQ
By 3.31.15
It was a little over a year ago that Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank ended months of contentious courtship and merged, with Men’s Wearhouse acquiring the smaller clothing chain for $1.8 billion. Now, the honeymoon is over, and Men’s Wearhouse is laying off or transferring some employees at Jos. A. Bank HQ in Hampstead, Maryland. [More]
Target Confirms 3,100 Jobs Being Cut, Left Unfilled At Minneapolis Headquarters
By 3.10.15
When Target announced it would shut down its Canadian operation, 17,600 people lost their jobs. Now, as the company prepares to embark on a $2 billion cost-cutting effort over the next two years, it has eliminated an additional 3,100 positions, this time at its Minneapolis headquarters. [More]
Sprint Closing Three Call Centers, Shutting Down 55 Stores Across The Country
By 3.21.14
Sprint has been hacking into its workforce this week, confirming that it recently closed 150 service and repair centers across the country, laying off 330 technical consultants. It’s also completely shutting down 55 of its worst-performing stores and closing three call centers — for a loss of 1,550 customer service jobs — and limiting operations at three others in an effort to cut back on costs. [More]
Kodak Takes Another Slow, Sad Step Toward The Death Of Film
By 6.14.13
Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last and continues to fight for relevance. You may be surprised to learn that one of the business lines they’ve kept has been film manufacturing for still photography and movies. Not enough, though, because Kodak is about to lay off the 61 workers who make acetate film base in the company’s Rochester, N.Y. home. [More]
Layoffs To Leave Best Buy’s Geek Squad Short Several Hundred Geeks
By 7.6.12
UPDATE The Wall Street Journal has confirmed some of what our tipsters have already told us, and adds that 1,800 Best Buy retail employees are also set to be dismissed in the near future.
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In the big media push that started with its most recent Super Bowl ads, Best Buy had been trying to position itself as a store that provided the one thing its online competitors couldn’t — knowledgeable, tech-savvy employees that can deal with customers on a face-to-face basis. Well, forget all about that hogwash, because the company has told its employees that it is laying off at least 650 Geek Squad staffers in the coming weeks. [More]
