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Citing Obamacare and an increase in the state’s minimum wage, the owner of Waterford-based Yankee One Dollar is closing down shop on all 23 remaining locations. Via the Times Union: Waterford-based Yankee One Dollar stores will be gone within the next five months, its owner told the Post Star of Glens Falls. Keith Flike blamed the Affordable Care Act and the increase in the state’s minimum wage for the decision to shut down. Each store has six to 10 employees, he told the Post Star. Yankee One Dollar has 23 stores, down from a peak of 39. The Daily Gazette reported...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – After 129 years, North Adams Regional Hospital is shutting down. Hospital workers were informed of the decision on Tuesday. Around 530 people will lose their jobs. The decision to shut down comes as the hospital files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It also affects the VNA & Hospice, along with the Northern Berkshire Healthcare Physicians Group. Current patients will be transferred to other facilities through April 4. The emergency room will close on Friday. “In the six years that I have been on the board we have investigated every possible avenue and exhausted all options as we...

Caesars Entertainment announced in a press release Wednesday that it will close Harrah's Tunica on June 2. This is one of three casinos Harrah's operates in Tunica in northern Mississippi. The 1,300 jobs that will be lost makes this one of the biggest layoffs ever in Mississippi, said Richard Bennett, chairman of the House Gaming Committee. The layoffs come at a time when Tunica County had the highest unemployment in state in February at 17.3 percent. Bennett said 75 percent of the jobs are held by Mississippi residents, with the remaining 25 percent of the employees from Tennessee and Arkansas....

Walgreen Co. on Tuesday said it plans to shutter 76 unprofitable drugstores by August as part of a plan to save $40 million to $50 million per year beginning in fiscal 2015. The drugstore chain, the nation's largest, declined to specify the locations of the stores slated to close aside from saying they're "spread across the country." Walgreen, based in Deerfield, IL, said it will confirm the closures in the coming months after it notifies employees. Most stores that will close either have had other Walgreen locations open in the same area or have seen real estate values decline since...

Restaurant chains are dropping like flies this week. On Monday pizza franchise Sbarro dipped into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Following in its footsteps on Friday, sub shop Quiznos announced that it too would sink into bankruptcy as part of a “pre-packaged” deal to cut its debt by more than $400 million, or two-thirds.

Brick-and-mortar retailers have been suffering from slow economic activity for years, as well as from increased competition from online retailers. The rise in store closings is a prominent sign of their struggles. Weakened companies cannot afford the real estate and personnel costs that go along with supporting hundreds of unprofitable locations. The clearest proof of the problem was Radio ShackÂ’s recent decision to close more than 1,000 stores. Radio Shack is hardly alone. During that last several years Gap has closed 20% of its locations. Even MacyÂ’s, which has forecast strong earnings and is considered the most successful of the...

On February 27th, Gordon Brothers Group, a global advisory, restructuring and investment firm was awarded the store closing process for all locations by the bankruptcy court. Store closing sales will begin on March 1st and will involve significant discounts on all merchandise, as well as store furniture, fixtures and equipment in order to wind down company operations. “Our employees continue to do a tremendous job maintaining high quality standards and they are dedicated to fully serving our customers during this transition,” David Minnix, president of Dots, said. “We appreciate the continued support of our valued customers over the years and...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) — Staples will close up to 225 stores in North America by the end of next year as it seeks to trim about $500 million in costs annually by 2015. The nation’s largest office-supply retailer said Thursday that nearly half of its sales are now generated online, so it will aggressively cut costs to become more efficient....

<p>Illinois employers warned they would lay off more than 1,000 workers in the coming months, according to notices filed with Illinois regulators in February.</p> <p>Accretive Health warned it would lay off 148 workers. The company said in January the layoffs are part of a broader restructuring in which positions will be moved from Chicago to other cities to be closer to clients. Accretive said then the layoffs could affect as many as 170 workers. The company employs about 600 people in the region.</p>

(Reuters) - Staples Inc (SPLS), the largest U.S. office supplies retailer, forecast a fall in current-quarter sales as it loses customers to mass market chains and e-retailers, and the company said it would close up to 225 stores in North America by 2015. Staples' shares fell 9 percent before the bell, after the company also posted lower-than-expected fourth-quarter results and forecast current-quarter profit below analysts' estimates. The company operates 1,515 stores in the United States and 331 stores in Canada.

just finished 6 months at a manufacturer, they are downsizing seasonally, I was an inspector on the production line, me and another inspector got it, more of the production crews are going to get laid off this week.

It was less than a month ago when Barclays announced it would fire 12,000 workers after posting abysmal earnings with Q4 banking income crashing 37% and overall income sliding 9%. So, one would think, its employees would be punished with lower pay - those that are lucky enough to keep their jobs of course. One would be wrong. Reuters just reported that 481 of Barclays employees were paid 1 million pounds ($1.7 million) or more last year, 53 more than in the year before, and most of them were based in the United States.The headscratcher continues: Barclays said 57...

There will soon be about 1,100 fewer places to buy batteries. RadioShack said Tuesday that it plans to close up to 1,100 stores, or about a fifth of its U.S. locations. The news came as the retailer reported a wider quarterly loss after a disappointing holiday season. Its stock tumbled 16 percent in afternoon trading. CEO Joseph Magnacca said the closings would leave the company with more than 4,000 U.S. stores. That's still far more than Best Buy, which has roughly 1,400 U.S. locations, and makes RadioShack stores nearly as common as Wal-Mart. RadioShack didn't immediately identify which stores will...

Wells Fargo cuts 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages declines.Wells Fargo & Co. said Wednesday that it is cutting 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages continues to shrink. The San Francisco-based bank said it notified affected employees Wednesday, and that almost all of them work at the Wells Fargo Home Mortgage campus in south Minneapolis. Some work elsewhere in the Twin Cities. The cuts follow scattered layoffs in the Twin Cities in January in which Wells Fargo laid off fewer than 30 mortgage-related workers. “We currently expect mortgage...

LYNN HAVEN, Fla. General Dynamics has sent letters to 730 of its employees at the ObamaCare call facility that they are being laid off. That's about half of the workforce at the facility in the old SalleMae facility at the Lynn Haven Industrial park. U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, II of Panama City says the loss of 730 Bay County jobs is a stark reminder of America’s transformation into a part-time, short-term society. The Congressman told NewsChannel 7, " I am saddened that these hardworking men and women are paying the price for the Obama administration’s unyielding pursuit of a job-crushing,...

Best Buy has a major cost-cutting operation in the works, and the code word is “pink slip.” The nation’s biggest electronics chain — which saw sales fall 2.6 percent during the Christmas selling season because of a price war with Amazon — has begun laying off thousands of midlevel managers nationwide as it girds for even more competition, The Post has learned. After slashing hundreds of jobs at Best Buy’s Minneapolis HQ last year and closing unprofitable stores, CEO Hubert Joly is now swinging the ax across the retailer’s 1,056 US big-box stores and regional offices, according to insiders briefed...

Cox Communications said Wednesday it is closing a call center in San Diego, eliminating 500 jobs. The move comes as part of a company-wide consolidation of call center operations for Atlanta-based Cox Communications, which is trimming its current 19 call centers nationwide into seven large sites. Company spokesman Dennis Morgigno said the expanded call centers will be located in Las Vegas; Phoenix; Omaha, Neb.; Oklahoma City; Wichita, Kan.; Hampton Roads, Va.; and Baton Rouge. California wasn’t chosen as a call center site because the company lacked real estate to expand here, Morgigno said. It had space available in the other...

IBM’s next round of layoffs are expected to begin on Wednesday, Feb. 26, according to a union for IBM employees. The internal code name for this round of cuts is “Project Apollo,” sources told the union, Alliance@IBM on an online forum where those who work for IBM can post comments about what’s going on inside the company. No one knows exactly how many people IBM will cut as part of its 2014 “workforce rebalancing.” IBM won’t comment on the number of employees affected but CFO Martin Schroeter did say that IBM plans to spend $US1 billion on 2014′s cuts, “plus...

The last time JPMorgan had an investor day, Jamie Dimon explained to Mike Mayo why he is richer than him (and pretty much anyone else). This year, Jamie will be more focused on explaining to 8,000 JPM workers why after firing 16,500 people in consumer and mortgage banking, the bank will now let go another 2K and 6K in those same two groups (which will bring total mortgage and consumer banking headcount reductions between 2013 and 2014 to at least 17K and 7.5K, respectively). This may be tricky especially in the context of, you know, the housing and economic...

But it's "only" 2.3%! How can such a tiny tax have such a large negative impact? That's the thinking of the excise tax supporters who think that the medical device industry can "easily afford" the tax (New York Times) and besides, they deserve it because they're "anti-competitive": A new survey says Obamacare's tax on medical device manufacturers has cost the industry about 33,000 jobs.In a report this week, the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) said companies cut about 14,000 workers and decided not to hire about 19,000 workers because of theThe report also said the 2.3 percent excise tax also...