Capitalists impose mass layoffs in retail

Hundreds of major U.S. retail stores are projected to close in 2025, with thousands of workers being displaced as a result.

JCPenney and the Ohio-based Joann Fabric and Crafts are the latest big box department store chains to announce upcoming store closures. In January, JCPenney revealed plans of shutting down eight stores nationwide; the company has been closing shops since declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020.

Joann Fabric and Crafts, known for selling unique craft-making supplies, publicly confirmed it is closing nearly two-thirds of its locations this year. After filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy twice in 2024, the company said 500 of its 850 stores will be shuttered nationwide.

These store closures will also hurt working-class sewists and tailors who rely on the stores’ material. In referencing the Joann store closures, sewist Daleena Fredrick-Banks told the Akron Beacon Journal: “It is very sad for the seamstresses all over. We all have to regroup and refocus on how we will get the fabric needed.” (Feb. 14)

JC Penney and Joann Fabric and Crafts are not the only department stores to announce upcoming closures. Big Lots recently announced it was closing nearly all of its locations, while Party City revealed they were closing every store by the end of February.

Other retailers expecting major closings and layoffs include Macy’s, Kohl’s, Dollar Tree, Office Depot, Advance Auto Parts, Walgreens and CVS.

Chain store closings negatively impact workers of all nationalities, generations and genders, especially women and gender-oppressed people, people of color, seniors, people with disabilities and people within the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Working-class and oppressed communities, including those in rural areas, will suffer the most from the layoffs and closures.

Capitalism: responsible for store closures and job losses

When corporations face bankruptcy, the bosses find ways to place blame on the workers. One excuse companies use to justify shop closures is so-called “underproductivity.” Rather than recognizing what Marxists call “overproduction,” corporate executives fault employees for mistakes made at the top.

Overproduction happens when  too many goods have been produced, which can no longer be sold at a profit, and value is diminished. Lower consumer demand may initiate a capitalist crisis or recession resulting in mass layoffs. Overproduction is cyclical and inevitable under capitalism.

Many of the companies that are shutting down operations have been bought out by private equity firms. While corporations sell their assets to avoid bankruptcy, private equity firms overhaul the companies for profit, which often causes closings and foreclosures.

While many corporate executives supported Donald Trump for president in the last three elections, a number are concerned Trump’s tariffs could increase costs. In 2018, Joann Fabric and Crafts’ then-CEO Jill Soltau complained in an interview with Business Insider that “42% of all goods sold at Joann stores would be subject to tariffs,” during the first Trump administration. (Akron Beacon Journal, Feb. 14)

Brick and mortar stores are also being replaced by online shopping and other forms of technology. The COVID-19 pandemic forced wider adoption of contactless payments and home delivery.

Solidarity and socialism are the solution

Retail store closings are happening just as federal workers are also being laid off in the tens of thousands because a goal of Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s unofficial “Department of Government Efficiency” is to shrink the federal workforce as a budget-cutting measure. .

Workers who are being let go by retail chains have a common material interest with federal workers, as well as undocumented workers and all working people around the world who are under attack by capitalism-imperialism.

Workers are being terminated while consumer prices continue to increase. The Trump-Musk administration is also promoting job-killing technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), at the same time the workforce is being reduced.

In contrast to the U.S., socialist countries use technology to promote job growth and sustainability. For example, the former socialist German Democratic Republic used the most advanced technology of its time to maintain full employment and improve working conditions.

While the U.S. ruling class currently uses AI as a tool to reduce jobs, China’s AI sector is “significantly expanding its hiring efforts,” according to a recent Global Times report. ( Feb. 11)

When comparing the differences in how socialist and capitalist countries utilize technology, Workers World Party co-founder and chair Sam Marcy wrote: “It’s not true that technology itself has grown to such dizzying heights that it cannot be controlled or managed. It can be. What stands in the way is private ownership and the struggle for super-profits, which make the productive forces in capitalist society unmanageable and lead to periodic crises.” (Workers World, Dec 12, 1991, “IBM and the High Tech crisis”)

Solidarity between workers and oppressed people is imperative in fighting back against the white supremacist Trump-Musk billionaire dictatorship and their dead-end capitalist system. A united, multinational working-class led resistance is necessary in forcibly putting a halt to the job-killing onslaught!