By Nathaniel Meyersohn | CNN
Macy’s, a venerable retailing icon, will slash about 3.5% of its workforce, or roughly 2,350 employees, and will shut five stores — including one in the East Bay — as it continues to shrink its massive business to cope with online shopping.
The retailer will shut its San Leandro department store, one of the anchors at Bayfair Center, a regional mall on East 14th Street. Bayfair Center is headed for a potential massive redevelopment featuring housing as its primary new component.
The Macy’s store closure in San Leandro will erase 66 jobs, according to a WARN notice that the retailer filed with the state Employment Development Department.
“The entire store is closing,” Allison Johnson, a Macy’s senior human resources partner, wrote in a letter to the state EDD “Job eliminations are permanent and will occur between March 19 and March 31, 2024.”
The soon-to-close Macy’s store in San Leandro is located at 15555 East 14th Street.
“Information about benefits will be made available to impacted employees as well as information about the opportunity to transfer to open positions in nearby Macy’s locations,” Johnson wrote in the WARN notice. “Macy’s colleagues have no bumping rights.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news that Macy’s would jettison thousands of workers and close the stores.
“As we prepare to deploy a new strategy to meet the needs of an ever-changing consumer and marketplace, we made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by 3.5% to become a more streamlined company,” a Macy’s spokesperson told CNN.
Retailers often lay off employees and announce store closures after the holidays, especially if they had a sluggish sales season.
However, Americans spent at a faster clip in December from the month prior, the Commerce Department said this week.
The company opened its first Macy’s in 1858 and now operates about 500 Macy’s branded stores, as well as 55 of the more upscale Bloomingdale’s chain.
Macy’s is emblematic of the holiday season, sponsoring both the Thanksgiving Day Parade In New York City that traditionally kicks it off and as the setting for, and employer of, Santa Claus in the 1947 classic film “Miracle on 34th Street.”
But it has struggled against rising competition and a migration of shoppers away from department stores.
A group of investors in December reportedly proposed to take Macy’s private at a vulnerable moment for the famed company. Macy’s has not commented on the activist attempt.
Macy’s has attempted numerous strategies in recent years to revitalize business, such as new brands and smaller stores, but the moves have not altered its long-term trajectory.
Macy’s stock price has dropped 75% from a peak of $73 a share in 2015. Since then, it has closed nearly 300 stores — almost one third of its stores — and operates about 700 across its brands.
— Staff writer George Avalos contributed to this story.