Macy’s cutting thousands of jobs

The company said that of about 3,000 store associates impacted, “roughly 50 percent of affected store associates are expected to be placed in other positions”.

The Akron location on Brittain Road, near the Cuyahoga Falls border, is one of two stores in OH that Macy’s will close.

The moves pleased investors.

Macy’s stock last traded at $36.14, down 2.22%, as of Wednesday, December 6. Four other locations were closed previous year.

For this holiday season, comparable sales on an owned plus licensed basis declined by 4.7% in the months of November and December 2015 combined, compared with the same period a year ago. CEO Terry J. Lundgren said in a statement. “In the November/December period, we were particularly disadvantaged by the historically warm weather in northern climate zones where both Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s are especially well-represented”, Lundgren said in a release.

The chain blamed its financial woes on a long list of reasons including the changing way people are shopping, the stronger US dollar making foreign supplies more costly, lower levels of spending by consumers, and even a warmer winter that kept people from buying cold weather clothing like coats, boots, and hats. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report earnings of $1.00 per share for the fourth-quarter.

About 2,110 of the job cuts at Macy’s will come from reducing staffing at stores, eliminating duplications in back-office operations and consolidating regional store groups. And it’s offering buyouts to 165 senior executives; about 35 percent of those jobs won’t be replaced.

Macy’s employed about 166,900 full-time and part-time workers as of January 31, 2015. Macy’s has faced significant pressure from activist shareholders amid the sluggish sales run.

Those were strong numbers for the Plano, Texas retailer, which is almost three years into a turnaround effort following a disastrous attempt to reinvent the brand under former Apple executive Ron Johnson. “Although we have much work to do, our strengthened omnichannel capabilities enabled our supply chain network to process millions of jcp.com orders this season, supported by 250 stores across the country that helped fulfill online orders using in-store inventory”.