“Store closures are part of a series of actions we’re taking to reduce ongoing expenses, adjust our asset base, and accelerate the transformation of our business model,” Riefs said in an email message.
The store has 57 mostly part-time, hourly employees. Those who are eligible will receive severance and have the opportunity to apply for open positions at area Sears or Kmart stores, Riefs said.
The local closing is part of the company’s plans to close about 50 stores across the country in the coming months after another tough year in which the company continued to post millions of dollars in losses.
In addition to the Englewood store, a Kmart store with 78 employees in Lancaster, Ohio, is slated for closing.
Kmart’s decision to close stores to stem its financial bleeding follows an announcement by Kohl’s Corp. in February that it will close 18 under-performing stores this year across the U.S.
The list of stores the Wisconsin-based retailer plans to shut down doesn’t include any Ohio locations, but the move was driven by the same concerns over lackluster sales and earnings that prompted Kmart’s decision to close stores.
Kohl’s announced the store closings when it released financial results for the fourth quarter, including the critical holiday shopping season.
“At the most competitive time in retail, customers were choosing Kohl’s,” CEO Kevin Mansell said in a press release. “This strength, however, was substantially offset by softness in early November and in January when demand for cold-weather goods was especially low, resulting in a quarterly comparable sales increase of 0.4 percent, which was below our expectations.”
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