Target to cut $2B in costs, including several thousand jobs

[question everything]

Source: AP

Target Corp. is cutting several thousand jobs as part of a plan to eliminate $2 billion in costs over the next two years.

The goal: to make the Minneapolis-based discounter more agile to compete in an increasingly competitive landscape and appeal to shoppers who are buying and researching on their mobile devices.

As part of the restructuring plans, Target will eliminate positions primarily at its corporate headquarters — which employs 13,500 workers — as well as Bangalore, India. The company also will establish centralized teams based on specialized expertise.

(snip)

In extended after-hours trading, shares of Target added 19 cents to $78.19.



Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/target-cut-2b-costs-including-233309210.html

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Never fails. A company announces layoffs, and its stock price rises

[Sherman A1]

1. Interesting

we will see where this plan leads. Most often, I believe that cuts in staffing rarely work out as well as anticipated.

[JohnnyRingo]

2. Get rid of the people who do the work.

I can't do the math on that, but it seems a common place to cut expenses, if not the first. It seems axing the people who actually do something is against logic in the long run.

[AngryDem001]

3. It's getting harder and harder to compete with online retail.

[Deadbeat Republicans]

4. So now there will only be one cash register open,

instead two out of the fifteen closed?

[cstanleytech]

5. So cutting the number of people working inside the stores will help increase sales?

Ya, I am sure their customers are just going to love this one.

[madville]

9. Article says most positions are at HQ

And overseas in India.

[cstanleytech]

10. What the article says and what they actually do are two different things though.

My money is on them cutting more jobs inside the stores themselves especially full time ones and replacing them with part timers who they will then be given short hours more than often with a schedule that is 100% impossible to predict thus negating any chance at them getting a 2nd job. You know, like Walmart.

[IkeRepublican]

11. I hope you're right

Unfortunately, they'll probably cut prices to impossible lows, write off the losses - which is a nice way of saying yours and my tax dollars - and 99% of American consumers will do what they always do...believe it's absolutely dandy because they got an electric lime juicer for $3.99.

[JI7]

6. isn't one of the reasons target does well is because people

End up buying things they didn't plan or need because the stores look really nice ?

Without enough employees will they be able to keep it up or will it end up looking like Wal-Mart and Kmart ?

[amandabeech]

8. The Target near me doesn't look neater and cleaner than the K-Mart,

and not much better than the Wal-Mart. In fact, the women's clothing section always looks like Hurricane Katrina hit it, and it does not carry some basic household items, like glassware. I rarely go there anymore.

The one closest to my Mom is larger and nicer, but if they cut store staff, it won't stay nicer any longer.

[cstanleytech]

12. Sounds like one of the ones near where I live. I mean the mens sock area was completely blown out

for example when I stopped in to try and find some.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. The one here in Chicago by me is a cluster fuck.

I don't go often but went to buy seat cushions last summer. I knew I was in trouble when the person I finally tracked down to help me was the same guy I saw pushing a giant roll of shopping carts two floors down and in the parking lot. He didn't speak much English.

I realized they only stock two sets of seat cushions in each color so I would have to go scrounge around all the northern illinois stores to re-cusion our patio furniture. I mean, who would ever need more than two of anything from that giant fucking store? I asked the clerk to check the Schaumburg store since my partner works in Schaumburg. After clacking away on his handheld device for 5 minutes, he asked me what street Schaumburg street was near. When I told him it was a city he said he couldn't help me.

We waited in line for several minutes only to get asked to move because the cashier was ending her shift. By the time we got the fuck out of there I was more than done.

I realized, when I got in the car, they only charged me for one set - The cushions came out of the back room still in the shipping bag so the cashier assumed they were one item.

No. I didn't go back in. No fucking way.

[cstanleytech]

15. Ya something similar happened to me at Walmart when I was in line and the cashier

suddenly couldnt ring me up and I only had one single item and had been in line waiting for 5 minutes and she was not really helpful other than to tell me I would have to get into another line.

[madville]

7. They just lost a fortune in Canada

Last year, gotta make up those losses somewhere.

Maybe they should buy Sears and Kmart to expand their "brand" lol j/k

[question everything]

13. Sack cartoon captures it

[QED]

16. Maybe they should look at their executive salaries

"Social media users demonstrated their outrage at the amount of Steinhafel’s [Target Canada CEO] departure package, which Fortune Magazine estimated at $61 million, while USA Today estimated it at $55 million. Regardless of the exact amount, it is clear that it is close to the $70 million total amount Target made available for designated “employee trust” funds, offered to its laid off Canadian employees."

http://torontoobserver.ca/2015/02/04/target-ceos-severance-pay-out-causes-online-outrage/