140 to lose jobs in Danville

DANVILLE -- The Walgreens office in the east central Illinois city of Danville has offered voluntary retirement and severance packages to 140 local workers.

The drugstore chain says the offerings are part of its need to cut 1,000 jobs. Employees have two weeks to consider the offers. Walgreens spokesman Michael Polzin says the company then will decide if involuntary staff cuts are necessary.

The jobs are at the Walgreens accounting center, which employs 875 people. It opened in 1971.

About 5,200 people work at Walgreen headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield. Polzin says the majority of the 1,000 positions will be cut from that location.