'Work Faster and Smarter' After Layoffs, Sears CEO Tells Employees

HOFFMAN ESTATES, IL — After revealing a $580 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2015, and declining sales at Sears and Kmart, Sears Holdings laid off 250 corporate employees on Thursday. About 200 of the job cuts took place at the Hoffman Estates headquarters.

Another 150 open positions in Hoffman Estates will not be filled.

“As we begin the new fiscal year, it is incumbent on all of us—at all levels of the organization—to sharpen our focus and efforts as we work to build and enhance our relationships with our (customers),” CEO Edward Lampert wrote in a memo to employees. “I’m asking each of you to work faster and smarter and to sharpen your efforts throughout the year.”

Other people affected, about 50, include those working on corporate support teams in Elgin, Illinois; New York City; Seattle; and Troy, Michigan, according to Sears.

“Firing employees may slow Sears’ descent into bankruptcy, but it won’t make Sears profitable,” Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan, told Crain’s Chicago Business in an email on Thursday.

More than 5,000 employees and contract workers are in the Hoffman Estates campus.

Sears Holdings plans to close 50 stores in 2016, reports the Chicago Tribune.

An Evercore ISI analyst covering Sears believes the nationwide retailer — which traces its lineage back to the 1880s when Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck partnered in Chicago to sell watches — is not “viable as a retailer in its current form.”

correction: information provided earlier misidentified the locations of support locations