Best Buy cuts hundreds of jobs in stores

Best Buy Co. is cutting store jobs across the country, as the electronics and appliance retailer works to lower costs as customers change their spending habits.

The retailer has cut hundreds of jobs in stores over the past week, including some workers who help people purchase or plan home-entertainment layouts, according to people familiar with the situation.

With an ever changing macroeconomic environment, including customers shopping more digitally than ever, we have made adjustments to our teams that include eliminating a small number of roles, said a company spokeswoman. Best Buy has job openings in other positions and is continuing to invest in areas of the business, such as home services, healthcare and stores, she said.

As of January, Best Buy had around 105,000 workers in the U.S. and Canada, down from nearly 125,000 workers in early 2020, according to financial filings.

The U.S. job market is strong and the latest job cuts at Best Buy come as a result of the latest job cuts at Best Buy. The Labor Department said that the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% last month, a half-century low that was seen just before the epidemic in early 2020. A handful of major employers are reducing hiring or reducing some of their jobs. Walmart Inc., the country's largest private employer, cut hundreds of corporate jobs earlier this month. Ford Motor Co. is about to cut thousands of white-collar workers, while technology giants like Microsoft Corp. and Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. have pulled back on hiring for certain roles.

Best Buy cut its sales and profit estimates for the second quarter, noting that business has slowed because of the high growth earlier in the pandemic when many people rush to buy electronics to work or entertain themselves at home. The company said last month that consumers are shifting spending because of high inflation.

The company is reworking how it uses its retail locations as more buying shifts online, and it has been remodeling stores and reworking how it uses its retail locations. It plans to remodel around 45 stores this year, it said during a May investor presentation. Last year, it announced it would close its Mexico operations, where it had a few dozen stores, focusing on its business in the U.S. and Canada.

Best Buy also eliminated a number of store jobs early last year in an effort to reduce costs. The layoffs for workers who retained their jobs in stores were destabilizing last year, according to interviews with current and former workers. Some workers refer to last year's job cuts as the snap, a reference to a moment in Walt Disney Co.'s Avengers: Endgame when the character called Thanos snaps his fingers to erase half of the world's population.

Best Buy is expected to report quarterly earnings on August 30. It expects comparable sales, from stores and digital channels operating for at least 12 months, to fall around 13% for the second quarter.