Best Buy To Cut 5,000 Jobs

Words by Retail Bum

Best Buy To Cut 5K Jobs
Best Buy To Cut 5K Jobs

Best Buy is looking to cut 5,000 full-time positions and add 2,000 part-time jobs as the company moves to close more large-format stores, according to Best Buy CEO Corie Barry.

Barry made the announcement on Thursday and revealed that most who were cut from full-time positions were offered part-time opportunities.

“At an aggregate level, this was due to having too many full-time and not enough part-time employees,” Barry said.

The move underpins Best Buy’s shift toward an operating model that is more flexible and supports its digital expansion.

Over the past year, Best Buy employees have had the opportunity to work across different parts of the business, i.e., virtual sales and both online and over-the-phone support. 

“It is important to add that we are intent on rescaling and retraining employees wherever possible, so we can retain our people and employees can flexibly work across all our channels,” said Barry.

This means training employees to help across a variety of functions, ranging from helping with curbside orders, answering customer support calls at their stores and/or providing assistance through the Best Buy mobile app. Some may take on tech support roles that can be done remotely.

The retailer is looking to recruit new employees in supply chain, parcel delivery, customer care and technology support.

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Best Buy has looked to digital sales and contactless service offerings — a strategy that helped it beat analysts’ expectations in the third quarter. The retailer witnessed a huge demand for home electronics and entertainment products, resulting in $11.85 billion in revenue, increasing over 20 percent from Q3 the year prior. But despite the boom, the company’s stock prices plummeted. In the year ahead, Best Buy expects the ongoing digital surge to slow down.

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