Monday, October 17, 2011 2:24 PM

Lowes to Close Stores;Gap to Close US Stores, Expand in China; Best Buy to Reduce Square Footage by 10%; Mall Vacancies Record High; Grim Jobs Picture

Financial job carnage has already been announced. Layoffs in the financial sector may affect 80,000 or more. Cash strapped cities and states are shedding workers. Housing is abysmal. To top it off, Retail jobs carnage is just around the corner.

• Gap will close 189 stores in the US and instead expand in China.
• Walmart plans smaller stores.
• Lowes announced today it will close 20 stores affecting 1,950 employees.
• Best Buy plans to reduce square footage by 10%.
• Regional and strip mall vacancies are at record highs already.

How many trucking jobs will that cost? How many manufacturing jobs? Note the implications on commercial real estate rents and prices.

Today Citigroup set aside lower reserves for losses. What a farce.

Let's take a look at some of the retail stories.

Lowe's to Close 20 Stores, Reduce Planned Openings

The Wall Street Journal reports Lowe's to Close 20 Stores, Reduce Planned Openings http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 85370.html

Lowe's Cos. is shutting 20 of its home-improvement stores and greatly slowing future openings in an effort to improve its profitability.

The closings affect about 1,950 employees, and the retailer will book a related second-quarter charge of $345 million to $415 million, or 17 cents to 20 cents a share.

The company now expects to open 10 to 15 stores a year in North America from 2012 forward, down from its prior assumption of about 30 stores a year. Lowe's will open about 25 stores this year, as planned, having already committed to the sites.

Lowe's closed 10 stores on Sunday and said it would shut 10 more within a month.

"Today we have a clearer view of the long-term economic recovery and decided to close these 20 stores," Lowe's spokeswoman Chris Ahearn said. "The stores have under-performed and we haven't seen progress necessary for them to reach profitability."

Gap Closing 189 U.S. Stores, Expanding in China

Yahoo!News reports Gap closing stores in US http://news.yahoo.com/gap-closing-store ... 16100.html

Oct 14, 2011
The struggling retailer, which runs the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic chains, detailed plans on Thursday to close 189 locations, or 21 percent of its namesake Gap stores in the U.S., by the end of 2013. At the same time, the largest U.S. clothing chain said it plans to triple the number of Gap stores in China from about 15 by the end of the year to roughly 45 by the end of next year.

On Thursday, Gap officials offered more details to analysts gathered in New York for its annual meeting. The company said that it plans to have closed 34 percent of its namesake Gap stores between 2007 and the end of 2013, not including Gap Outlet locations. After the reduction, it will have 700 Gap stores left by the end of 2013, down from 1056 in 2007.

80,000 Financial Sector Layoffs

NakedEmpire says 'Financial Sector Layoffs could top 80,000' http://nakedempire2.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... d-top.html

August 2, 2011

In July, as financial sector layoffs mounted, a top executive search firm estimated as many as 80,000 jobs might go in this coming round of financial layoffs.

“This is kind of like the beginning of a tsunami,â€