Round Rock Sears Employees Not Among Those Laid Off

ROUND ROCK, TX -- Sears employees in Round Rock are not among those likely to be affected by a layoff after the parent company posted a loss of nearly half-a-billion dollars in its last fourth quarter.

Sears Holdings -- which owns Sears and Kmart -- posted a $580 million loss in the last quarter of 2015, prompting the company to lay off roughly 200 workers at its Hoffman Estates, Illinois, headquarters.

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.

Sears offices in Round Rock and Plano will not be affected, Sears told Patch.

Sears operates its local store at 1300 Louis Henna in Round Rock.

While announcing the cuts, the company’s CEO advised workers to work “faster and smarter” even while some of their co-workers were suddenly out of work.

“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.”

One analyst observed that while laying workers off may stop some of the bleeding, it won’t curtail the company’s slow descent toward bankruptcy.

“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.

It’s likely to get worse before it gets better: Sears Holdings plans to close 50 stores in 2016, reports the Chicago Tribune.

correction: information provided earlier misidentified the locations of support locations