Dive Brief:
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U.S. corporations cut 45,934 jobs in January and retailers accounted for nearly half of them, according to the latest report on monthly job cuts released Thursday by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
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Retailers made up the top four companies announcing the most job cuts, led by Macy’s and its plans to close 68 stores and reduce its workforce by some 10,000 workers. The top four also included The Limited, American Apparel and Wet Seal.
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In all, retailers announced 22,491 layoffs in January, up from the 22,246 job cuts announced in the year-ago period.
Dive Insight:
Early year job cuts are becoming the norm for retailers, especially for those that are unable to leverage the critical holiday season to pull them out of their doldrums.
“A January surge in retail layoffs has become the standard. Most retailers ramp up hiring in the final three months of the year to handle the holiday rush," according to the report. "However, as consumers increasingly go online to shop, retailers are not only dismissing temporary seasonal workers, but also increasingly closing stores and laying off permanent staff.”
Many retailers are making massive changes as they retool strategies in a retail era increasingly dominated by e-commerce and technologies that could automate the work of employees. Wal-Mart has recently announced several layoffs in human resources and accounting roles, opting to focus on customer-facing hires. And Macy’s has announced the closure of some 100 stores, which many observers believe is just the tip of the iceberg.
This month, Wet Seal and The Limited both filed for bankruptcy and have announced they will shutter all stores, resulting in the combined loss of thousands of jobs. American Apparel is likely on Challenger’s top four list because the company in January cut its U.S.-based manufacturing jobs as well as its corporate and store staff as it emerged from its second bankruptcy filing in little over a year.
Not all retailers are laying workers off. Amazon recently announced it would add some 100,000 full-time, full-benefit jobs in Texas, California, Florida, New Jersey and “many other states across the country over the next 18 months.