Albertsons Stock In Focus With Reported Layoffs: Retail’s In Wait-And-Watch Mode

Shares of Abertsons Inc. were in the spotlight on Wednesday after several media outlets reported the company was making job cuts, drawing cautious sentiment from retail investors.

Albertsons is retrenching workers in its corporate division, Grocery Dive reported citing a company spokesperson. The layoffs are part of the grocer’s effort to lower expenses, according to the report.

According to Boise Dev, the chain may also offshore some roles. The total number of impacted employees wasn’t immediately known.

“After many years of productivity efforts across several parts of our company, we recently turned our attention to our general and administrative expenses and made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our corporate and division support workforce. No store-level associates were impacted,” Albertsons spokespeople reportedly said.

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment was cautious about the layoffs.

Albertsons recently reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings, with earnings per share coming in at $0.69, beating analyst expectations of $0.64. Revenues stood at $18.8 billion, in line with analyst expectations.

Albertsons also sued fellow grocery chain Kroger in December after its $25 billion merger collapsed due to regulatory hurdles. Albertsons alleged Kroger failed to exercise its “best efforts” to secure regulatory approval of the companies’ agreed merger transaction.

Albertsons stock is up 1.17% year-to-date.

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