The retailer has laid off an undisclosed number of employees at its headquarters in the US.
Sun Sentinel reported that employees were laid off at the company’s Boca Raton headquarters, and that as yet numbers had not been disclosed. According to Palm Beach County records, the headquarters employs around 2,000 people. Since the failed merger with Staples the company has closed 300 stores.
Karen Denning, spokeswoman for Office Depot, said that “the number of employees laid off in the restructuring, part of a three-year plan to make the office supply retailer more efficient, doesn’t warrant a notification to the state”.
In Florida employers must “notify the state of mass layoffs of 500 or more, or for 50 to 499 employees, if they make up at least 33 percent of the workforce” under the WARN act, but the Department of Economic Opportunity said that it had not received a WARN notice from the company.
Denning said in a statement: “As part of Office Depot’s three-year strategic plan announced in August 2016, the company today completed a restructuring effort.” Office Depot has “an economic incentives contract with the city of Boca Raton” which states that they must retain 1,750 employees and “create 200 new jobs” to receive any tax rebates.
Kelly Smallridge, President of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, commented that she “would expect any layoff at Office Depot to be related to~ the failure of its merger with Staples. Staples paid Office Depot a break up fee of $250 million (€234 million) after the merger was called off.