Hundreds of workers being furloughed by department store giants Kohl’s and Macy’s
By GEORGE AVALOS | March 31, 2020
SAN JOSE — Macy’s and Kohl’s disclosed plans on Monday for companywide furloughs, including their department stores, a move that seems certain to worsen the forbidding economic woes linked to the coronavirus.
Macy’s and Kohl’s have locations at Northgate mall in Terra Linda. Macy’s is also located in the Village at Corte Madera mall. Several hundred jobs could be lost in the Bay Area alone, based on the number of department stores the retailers operate in the nine-county region.
Macy’s operates 14 department stores in the Bay Area, along with three furniture and mattress gallery stores. Bloomingdale’s, a unit of Macy’s, operates three Bay Area stores, including one at San Jose’s Westfield Valley Fair mall that opened in early March, staffed by 300 workers.
“We will be moving to the absolute minimum workforce needed to maintain basic operations,” Macy’s posted on its web site on Monday. “This means the majority of our colleagues will go on furlough beginning this week.”