Sears Again: Retail Blood-Letting Leads Jobs Cut Across U.S.

(Bloomberg) -- They’ve cut to the bone in the retail industry.

Data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas show closings have led jobs cuts by reason so far this year with the outplacement firm tracking a total of 2,565 shuttered units.

Brick-and-mortar closings have been responsible for 35 percent of announced job cuts across all industries, up from 23.6 for the same period last year.

There’s no sign of a let up.

Just today, Sears Holdings Corp., money-losing operator of Sears and Kmart stores, announced more closings are on the way.

“For smaller communities, many of which continue to struggle while large cities thrive, the impact of their closures, while not surprising, is still large,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com.

Bankruptcies are also taking a more prominent role this year, accounting for 14.6 percent of job cuts versus less than 2 percent in the first five months of 2017, the Challenger data show.

In May alone, the number of planned job cuts across all industries slowed, falling to 31,515 -- the lowest since last October, according to Challenger.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Tanzi in Washington at atanzi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kristy Scheuble at kmckeaney@bloomberg.net, Alex Tanzi, Vincent Del Giudice

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