
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 13, 1991                   TAG: 9102130137
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DEBORAH EVANS AND CATHRYN MCCUE/ STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SEARS MAY SPARE LOCAL OPERATIONS

Sears, Roebuck & Co.'s operations in Western Virginia apparently will be spared the current round of retrenchment that will cut nearly 9,000 workers from the retailer's payroll nationwide. But one store manager said the final word on local layoffs won't come before next week.

Managers at the five Sears stores in the Roanoke and New River valleys and the company's telecatalog center in Roanoke said they have no current plans to reduce operations or lay off employees.

J.M. Sears, manager of the Sears store at Valley View Mall in Roanoke, said any announcements about whether that store will be affected will be made next week.

"I know of no plans to close any retail centers," said Bill Wallace, manager at the New River Valley Mall store in Christiansburg. He declined to say how many people work at the store, citing company policy.

"We've been here 104 years and we are going to be here for a long time," said Tom McVaney, manager of the Sears Telecatalog Center in Roanoke.

Radford store manager John Zienius said his location will be converted to a merchant-owned business on April 1, part of a process Sears began last summer to sell or close catalog stores in small towns. Zienius said the company is negotiating to sell the store, but he declined to identify the potential buyer.

A few of the 13 employees at Radford will retire when the conversion takes place, Zienius said. The rest likely will continue to work at the store, a catalog center that sells mostly appliances.

Sears, the nation's largest merchant, announced Monday it would idle 9,000 workers due to dismal sales and earnings figures in 1990. The job cutbacks could total 30,000 by year's end, the company said.

The latest round of cuts accompanied the Chicago-based company's report that its earnings had dropped 37 percent in the fourth quarter of the 1990 fiscal year. Normally, a retailer earns the largest portion of its profits in the final quarter, because it includes the Christmas shopping season.

Sears earned $378.8 million in the fourth quarter, down from $602.1 million in the final quarter of 1989. Revenue rose to $15.56 billion from $15.18 billion.

In 1990, Sears earned a total of $902.2 million, down from $1.51 billion, while revenue rose to $55.97 billion from $53.79 billion a year earlier.

Before the 8,900 job layoffs announced Monday, Sears had announced the elimination of nearly 24,000 jobs, 88 percent of them non-sales positions at retail stores. Sears employs 500,000 people nationwide.

by CNB