RICHFIELD, Minn. - Richfield-based Best Buy is reassigning 2,000 employees In an effort to reverse slumping sales at its retail stores.
The employees in question are being moved from loss prevention and greeter positions to the sales floor.
A Best Buy spokesperson told Bloomberg News that no workers are being fired.
Chief Executive Hubert Joly, a turnaround specialist who took over last week, is seeking to revive sales as customers defect to Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Comparable-store sales at Best Buy, the world's largest consumer-electronics retailer, have advanced only once in the past nine quarters, hurting profitability.
"Negative comps and declining margins -- you don't need to be an expert in anything to know that these are not great things," Joly said in an interview last week. "There's a significant investment in training at the front line."
Best Buy operated 1,062 big-box stores in the United States as of Aug. 4.
The news comes as company founder Richard Schulze attempts to take the company private, offering between $24 and $26 per share. Schultz was granted 60 days to bring a proposal before the board.
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