More layoffs, more store closings. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)
2017 GEORGE FREY
After all Sears has been through, you’d think it couldn’t get any worse. But now reports from inside the company and from at least one of its vendors say the deconstruction of the once fabled retailer has entered a new – and particularly devastating – stage.
A key vendor, who wished not to be identified because the company still does business with Sears – reported that buyers at the company said 80% of the workforce at Sears Hoffman Estates, IL corporate offices had been laid off last night. It was not possible to establish a number of employees fired but previous reports from vendors who visited the offices said there were vast empty spaces in the offices and hundreds of workers were already long since gone.
What was particularly telling was the suddenness of the move. This vendor said the company had just met with two of the buyers who handled its products earlier this week and now both were gone. This supplier, in the home furnishings area, said after these layoffs the entire merchandising staff for the home area for Sears had been reduced to four buyers and one divisional merchandise manager. This compares to dozens of merchandisers in the past at Sears and more than that at comparable retailers. In the meantime, a long-time employee at an unidentified Sears store in California said they had been told yesterday that their store was closing. It had not been one of the ones Sears management had previously identified as being shut down. This employee said the closing of this store would result in “massive layoffs.”
When former Sears CEO Eddie Lampert convinced a bankruptcy court to allow him to purchase the remaining assets of Sears and continue to operate it, his argument – and the judge’s reasoning – was that Lampert had the best chance to continue to keep open what were then about 400 or so remaining Sears and Kmart locations. Also, to keep its remaining workers – estimated at between 45,000 and 65,000 depending on press reports – employed.
While Sears could not be reached for comment on this latest moves it appears that those commitments continue to be breached and that whatever is left of Sears may in fact be on its last legs. That’s been said numerous times over the past few years but this time it could be really be true.
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