Macy's Closing Stores, Cutting Jobs

Macy's Inc. is closing stores and cutting jobs in 2018 after reporting a 1 percent increase in comparable sales during the key holiday months of November and December and predicting a slightly better-than-expected decline in full-year comparable sales.

The company, which promised in 2016 to shutter 100 stores, also said it would close 11 stores, cut jobs and further streamline non-store functions to save about $300 million in costs in 2018.

Macy's shares were up 1.5 percent in premarket trading on Thursday.

The department store chain said demand for apparel and beauty products had driven sales during the holiday shopping months, and would boost fourth-quarter comparable sales.

Like other traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, Macy's has been heavily focused on streamlining operations to fend off competition from online retailers such as Amazon.com Inc .

Macy's said it expects full-year comparable sales to decline by about 2.4-2.7 percent, a slight improvement on the 2.2-3.3 percent decline the company forecast in November.

(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in Bengaluru and Richa Naidu in Chicago; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Jonathan Oatis)

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