Sears lays off 220 employees

(Reuters) - Struggling retailer Sears Holding Corp (NASDAQ: SHLD) said it laid off about 220 employees primarily at its corporate headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, effective immediately.

Positions in various business units and roles across the organization were impacted, Sears spokesman Howard Riefs told Reuters.

The move is part of the department store chain's ongoing restructuring plan to get back to profitability, Riefs said.

The news was first reported by CNBC.

The company, led by billionaire hedge fund investor Eddie Lampert, has been shutting stores and cutting jobs aggressively to turn a profit in 2018 following six years of losses.

Earlier this month, the company said it was closing 103 unprofitable Kmart and Sears stores.

Once the largest U.S. retailer, Sears is saddled with $3.3 billion in debt and is trying to boost liquidity after warning last March that it had doubts of continuing as a going concern.

Shares of the company fell 2.5 percent to $2.59 in afternoon trading on Wednesday. They had tumbled more than 60 percent in 2017.

(Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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