JC Penney stores closing; Andalusia not on the list

Published 9:04 am Thursday, January 16, 2014

The Andalusia J.C. Penney store is not among the 33 closures announced Wednesday by the corporate office.

The closures will cut 2,000 jobs from the company’s workforce. The only Alabama store listed is in Selma.

The company said in a statement that the closings and resulting job cuts would result in a savings of about $65 million a year.

A supervisor at the Andalusia store said, “We’ve not gotten any word yet about that from corporate. We do pretty good here at this store.”

One of the oldest retailers in the nation, J. C. Penney has undergone considerable management and investment trouble over the last several years.

On Wednesday, the company said it was closing what it determined were “underperforming” stores among its more than 1,000 locations.

Several major retailers have already lowered their profit forecasts, and reported that the holiday season’s sales were fairly static, or represented just slight growth over the previous year.

The J.C. Penney stores are expected to be closed by early May.