The nation’s largest consumer electronics chain, Best Buy, is trimming jobs in an effort to adjust to new changes in consumer behavior as the virus eases.
best Buy It declined to say how many jobs it was cutting, but the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, estimated it involved hundreds of jobs at the store level.
“We are always evaluating and developing our teams to ensure that we are serving our customers well,” Best Buy said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press. “With the ever-changing macroeconomic environment in which customers are shopping digitally more than ever before, we have made adjustments to our teams that include eliminating a smaller number of roles.”
Late last month Best Buy cut jobs after lowering its annual sales and profit forecast, citing rising inflation, which has dented consumer spending on gadgets. The Minneapolis-based company echoed Walmart, which just days ago cut its profit outlook. The country’s largest retailer said higher prices on basic necessities are forcing shoppers to cut back on discretionary items.
Walmart also announced earlier this month that it was cutting jobs at its corporate headquarters as part of a restructuring effort.
Still, the latest snapshot on the overall US job market remains strong, even as inflation continues and continues to affect businesses of all types. Last week, the government reported that unemployment fell another notch to 3.5 percent from 3.6 percent, hitting a more than 50-year low just before the pandemic hit. The economy has now recovered all the 22 million jobs it lost in March and April 2020, when COVID-19 hit the US.
Best Buy said last month that it now expects sales at this year’s stores to drop 11 percent at least a year, much faster than the 3 percent to 6 percent drop it originally forecast in May.
For Best Buy’s fiscal second quarter, it expects comparable sales to decline 13 percent. Nevertheless, revenue for the quarter should be about 7.5 per cent higher than the second quarter of 2020, it said.
Best Buy is set to report its quarterly results on August 30.