Sears to cut about 400 full-time jobs
Company trying to save $1.25 billion in costs per year.
Sears Holdings says it will cut about 400 fulltime jobs as part of the troubled retailer’s plan to turn its business around.
The company, which owns the Sears and Kmart chains, says the cuts include some at its corporate offices in Hoffman Estates, Ill., support functions globally, certain field operations positions and jobs related to store closures. The eliminated jobs represent less than half a percent of the 140,000 full-time and part-time employees it had at the end of January.
Sears Holdings Corp. said Tuesday that the job cuts are part of its previously announced plans to save $1.25 billion in costs a year. The retailer, which has been losing money for years, has been closing stores, selling locations and putting some of its famous brands up for sale. The company is reportedly closing an additional 66 stores by early September. That’s on top of the 150 stores that closed in April.
“We are making progress with the fundamental restructuring of our operations that we initiated in February,” Edward S. Lampert, chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings, said in a statement. “We remain focused on realigning our business model in an evolving and highly competitive retail environment. This requires us to optimize our store footprint and operate as a leaner and simpler organization.”
The news comes as Sears Canada, a separate publicly traded company that was spun off from Sears Holdings in 2012, announced that it was studying its strategic options, including the possible sale of the company.
Sears Canada said that based on management’s current assessment, cash and forecasted cash flows from operations are not expected to be sufficient to meet its obligations over the next 12 months.
Sears has been struggling with a sales malaise that extended during the first quarter. The storied retailer vowed to make additional spending cuts to offset its slowing business.
The company reported in May that its operating loss widened to $222 million, or $2.15 per share, on weak sales in the latest quarter. A year ago, it reported a loss of $181 million.
Revenue fell 20 percent, to $4.3 billion, and sales at established stores fell 11.9 percent. vices, health care and commerce markets.
The company, which is based in Austin and has satellite offices in New York, London and India, will use the funding to accelerate product development.
Last year, CognitiveScale and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston signed a multiyear partnership to apply cognitive computing to health care decision-making, enhance the patient experience and improve employee productivity.
Other customers include Macy’s, Nestle, IBM and Barclays.
“This round of funding demonstrates continued confidence in our strategy to help businesses augment and extend human creativity and capabilities,” CognitiveScale CEO Akshay Sabhikhi said in a written statement. “We have delivered real and measurable outcomes with some of the largest banks, health care and retail organizations.”
Sabhikhi spent seven years at Austin-based Trilogy in product management roles. Following Trilogy, he held positions at other software companies, including Webify, which IBM acquired in 2006.
The Webify acquisition led to an eight-year stint at IBM. Following IBM, Sabhikhi co-founded CognitiveScale.
CognitiveScale’s executive chairman is Manoj Saxena, a former general manager of IBM Watson, and its chief technology officer is Matt Sanchez, who previously led Watson Labs.