Walgreens, a Deerfield-based company and one of the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chains, announced it is laying off over 450 employees in Illinois after it was bought by private equity last year.
Walgreens Vice President of General Counsel Kimberly Metrick informed the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) of the layoffs in a letter earlier this month.
Metrick said Walgreens was reorganizing several areas of the business to “best position the Company for growth and deliver results where they matter most: in our stores and with our customers and patients.”
The letter said there will be layoffs at the company’s headquarters in Deerfield as well as its offices in Chicago and Danville.
469 employees were affected by the reorganization and the company provided employees with 60-day notices during a 14-day period beginning on February 10.
All of the affected employees will remain employed and receive their full compensation for the entire 60-day period unless they resign.
“We expect these reductions in force to be permanent, and we will provide all affected employees with outplacement services to assist with the transition to other employment,” Metrick said.
The company described the layoffs as a “low percentage of employees” and said all of the facilities in which the affected employees are employed would remain open.
However, in Texas, the company has announced it is cutting an additional 159 jobs and closing a distribution center.
The layoffs come less than a year after Walgreens announced that it had been acquired by Sycamore Partners, a private equity firm based in New York, and would be operating as a private standalone company.
Mike Motz was appointed as CEO of Walgreens following the buyout. He previously was the CEO of Staples US Retail, which was a Sycamore Partners portfolio company.
“Today represents an exciting new chapter and a turning point for Walgreens,” Motz said in August.
“As a private organization, alongside our dedicated team members, we are renewing our focus on our core pharmacy and retail platform, our stores and our customer experience—building on the progress that’s been made,” Motz said.
Walgreens was founded in 1901 and serves nearly nine million customers and patients each day across its 8,500 stores in the United States with approximately 210,000 team members.