Sears to eliminate 200 jobs

Sears Holdings Corp. has announced it is cutting about 200 headquarters jobs as it tries to bring its overhead costs in line with falling sales.

The 200 jobs, which are in support functions, represent about 4 percent of Sears' 5,000 headquarters employees, said Sears spokesman Chris Brathwaite. He declined to be more specific.

The Hoffman Estates-based retailer notified employees of the pending cuts in a memo Tuesday from interim CEO W. Bruce Johnson.

The job cuts come as billionaire investor Edward Lampert looks for a way to turn around the company created when he engineered Kmart Holding Corp.'s purchase of Sears, Roebuck and Co. in 2005. Late last month, Sears unveiled a restructuring that divides the company into a five independently run businesses.

Support is one of the five business areas being created under the new structure. While Brathwaite declined to disclose the support functions targeted in the cuts, Sears described the new support unit as housing such functions as marketing, store operations, customer strategy and finance.

Sears is the latest retailer to announce job cuts since a disappointing holiday season. Macy's, J.C. Penney and Home Depot all announced job cuts recently.