Walmart plans to shutter half its stores in Chicago, citing poor performance at each of the locations.
There are eight stores in Chicago, and the company will close four of them.
Three of the locations are located in primarily minority-dominant areas of Chicago in its South and West Side neighborhoods and have long struggled with access to grocery and retail stores, according to CNN.
Walmart said in a blog post the four stores that are closing “lose tens of millions of dollars a year” and annual losses have doubled over the past five years.
“Unfortunately, these efforts have not materially improved the fundamental business challenges our stores are facing,” the company said.
The news of the Chicago Walmart closings comes just a few weeks after the company closed its last remaining stores in Portland, Oregon.
In that instance, Walmart also cited the inability to meet financial expectations, but the closures also came after Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said record-breaking retail theft hurt the company’s economic performance last year.
Walmart is planning to shutter stores in 12 states and Washington DC.
Workers at the affected Chicago stores will be able to switch to other Walmart stores, and the company said it would work with city government leaders to find a way to repurpose the space formerly occupied by the stores.
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