This Popular Retailer Is Now Laying Off 100 Employees

February 29, 2024

This popular retailer is now laying off 100 employees affecting about 2.5% of the company’s workforce, sources report.

The Container Store this week laid off about 100 employees, roughly 2.5% of its total workforce, the company told Retail Dive in an email Thursday.

Affected employees have been notified by a member of the retailer’s leadership, and are getting severance and support from its human resources team, the company said.

The layoffs are the result of close scrutiny of the retailer’s cost structure amid declining sales that have continued into its fourth quarter, which ends March 30.

Last month The Container Store lowered its Q4 and full-year guidance and at the time CEO Satish Malhotra pledged “strong discipline with both our promotional strategy and expense management” in light of the company’s top-line slide.

He noted particular weakness in the retailer’s core merchandise, which he warned was continuing into the new year.

Also at that point, the company said it expected full-year net sales to land somewhere between $842 million to $847 million, down from its previous guidance of $870 million to $885 million.

The company forecast a comp decline in the low 20s, worse than its earlier expectation of a high-teens decline.

“The expected decline in comparable store sales is reflective of weather challenges we have experienced in January as well as continued pullback in our core and value-oriented general merchandise categories,” Chief Financial Officer Jeff Miller told analysts during a Q3 conference call.

On Thursday, the company reiterated that the layoffs and other cost-cutting measures are being implemented in response to its sales trends, and to manage cashflow and ensure long-term stability and growth.

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Also Read: A New Wave of Unexpected Layoffs Now Hits Wisconsin

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This massive restaurant is now closing 41 locations over the next quarter due to major underperformance, sources report.

Bloomin’ Brands will close 41 stores over the next quarter, reports Restaurant Dive.

These units include 36 “predominantly older, underperforming restaurants” and five Aussie Grill locations, including three in the U.S. and two in international markets, according to the company’s latest earnings release.

Bloomin’ decided to close the restaurants in question following a periodic review of assets that included consideration of trade area, historical performance and the investment required to renovate the units and strengthen their sales, CEO David Deno said on the company’s Q4 2023 earnings call.

The company will see “asset impairments and net closure charges of $32.3 million during Q4 2023.

We expect to complete these closures during Q1 2024 and incur charges of between $8 million and $11 million,” according Bloomin’s earnings release.

Deno said Bloomin’ would offer transfer opportunities to a large number of impacted employees and severance payments to those it cannot place.

The closures were not a reflection of the performance of individual employees, Deno said.

“A majority of these restaurants were older assets with leases from the 90s and early 2000s,” Deno told analysts.

Aussie Grill, the smallest of Bloomin’s brands, will be hardest hit by the closures.

According to the chain’s Q3 earnings release, the fast casual brand had 14 units at the start of Q4, with seven in the U.S. and seven in international markets.

The chain’s five closures represent a more than 35% drop in unit count for the brand.

Bloomin’ expects to open 40 to 45 new restaurants in 2024, in areas Deno described as “promising trade areas with great potential.”

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Also Read: A Famous Restaurant Chain Now Closes 4 Locations in Florida

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