Macy's to close 68 stores and cut 10,000 jobs

Outside the flagship Macy&#039;s in New York City.

(Image credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

last updated 5 January 2017

On Wednesday, Macy's announced it will close 68 stores and cut more than 10,000 jobs.

The company said in a press release it expects to lay off 3,900 employees as a result of the stores shuttering and 6,200 more by streamlining its management team. Macy's also issued an earnings report showing comparable stores sales dropped 2.1 percent last quarter, which caused the company's stock to dip nearly 10 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Macy's said the affected stores will all be closed by mid-year, and any savings will be invested in its digital business and marketing its Bluemercury and Macy's Backstage brands. Mark Cohen, a Columbia Business School professor, told CNN Money he expects to see closures and layoffs an ongoing trend in 2017, adding that brick-and-mortar stores have been "unwilling to fully acknowledge the reality of their business performance."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.