Macy’s lays off nearly 4,000 employees

Macy’s is cutting roughly 4,000 back-office and management jobs as Covid-19 continues to hurt its bottom line.

The layoffs, which account for 3% of Macy’s workforce, will save the company around $630 million annually. Macy’s is reopening many of its stores across the United States, which the company previously said are performing better-than-expected.

“Covid-19 has significantly impacted our business,” Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said in a statement Thursday. “While the reopening of our stores is going well, we do anticipate a gradual recovery of business, and we are taking action to align our cost base with our anticipated lower sales.”

The company also announced that many of its furloughed employees will be brought back in the first week of July. Macy’s placed a majority of its 125,000 employees on furlough in March following the temporary closures of its stores following the start of the pandemic. Stores began reopening in early May as states lifted their stay-at-home orders.

Macy’s is set to release its first-quarter results on July 1. Macy’s expects an operating loss of around $969 million between February and May, which is slightly lower than the $1.1 billion it was originally forecast to lose.

Still, the first quarter will be dismal compared to the same quarter a year ago. Macy’s expects sales to fall 45% to $3 billion and it’s expecting a quarterly net loss of $652 million. It raked in a $136 million quarterly net gain for the same time period in 2019.

Macy’s, which also owns Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, has around 775 stores in the United States.