Penney lays off 350 workers at Texas headquarters

[OhioChick]

Source: AP

July 10, 2012 4:20 PM ET

NEW YORK (AP) - J.C. Penney Co. workers are feeling more pain as the department store chain struggles with a transformation.

More than five months into big changes under its new CEO, Penney announced Tuesday that it's laying off another round of workers at its headquarters in Plano, Texas. The 350 workers being cut were primarily in finance, technology, product development and sourcing, according to company spokeswoman Kate Coultas.

The latest layoffs mean Penney has slashed its headquarters workforce nearly 30 percent, to 3,100 employees, since spring.

Penney is cutting costs amid the difficult task of turning around its business to make it more nimble. But investors are losing faith in Penney's strategy, and shares dropped nearly 6 percent Tuesday. The stock has lost half its value since February after initially climbing on optimism about the changes.

Read more: http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=AP&date=20120710&id=15315657

[raccoon]

1. Sure hope they laid off enough people to give the new CEO a huge salary. :sarcasm: nt

[patrice]

2. Wonder what the age range was.

[Sherman A1]

7. Shouldn't be too hard to guess

that they were the higher pay ranges and most likely the older workers.

[Itchinjim]

3. "New Coke"

They'll never learn.

[Ikonoklast]

4. J.C. Penney is in a death spiral.

And the new CEO's marketing tactics are not working at all.

[bongo_x]

5. I bought a bunch of clothes there last week...

I bought a bunch of clothes there last week. I don’t know if I’ve ever shopped there before. Their plan seems a little fragmented, but I like what they’re trying to do with the simple pricing, I like the same sex couple ads they ran, and I like the clothes a lot.

I like to support businesses who try to do things I like, so many of them don’t.

[TexasTowelie]

6. Thanks, I went ahead and cross-posted this in the Texas Group.

Oddly enough, the AP article came out at 4:20? At least it was ET and we're CT.

[JNelson6563]

8. Maybe they need to change their buying matrix

Cause the poorly sewn, jammed into the rack, sweat shop crap their selling doesn't work for me. Oh and they may want to look into expanding their range of sizes. Not everyone is a size 12 or higher. Just because I am of very slight build doesn't mean I want to drag my 49 year old butt over to juniors to buy ridiculously styled poorly sewn sweatshop crap.

Their inventory is so poorly managed, poor variety, shitty quality and (in many cases) over-priced~~I can only imagine what kind of nightmare their buyers must live through on a daily basis.

Julie