Over 100 employees to be laid off when JCPenney at North Hills closes in April
JCPenney is shutting its door its only Raleigh location, in the North Hills shopping center, and laying off about 110 employees, according to a company statement.
The move results from a string of closings nationwide announced last year following annual reviews of several stores’ performances.
A notice from the company to the N.C. Department of Commerce earlier this month reported that the store would cease operations “on or about” April 24 and that employees will be permanently terminated following the closure.
“This will include all associates assigned to the Raleigh store, except those, if any, who remain employed with the company in another location,” the notice read.
The notice said that only “a few” employees are expected to be offered employment in other JCPenney locations.
In a statement, a JCPenney spokeswoman said that eligible employees who don’t remain with the company will receive separation benefits and that all impacted employees will be offered a three-hour career training class.
“As part of a standard annual review, JCPenney will be closing the store located at North Hills Shopping Center with an effective closing date of April 24,” the statement read. “This decision is the result of an ongoing review of our store portfolio. It’s never easy to close a store, however, we feel this is a necessary business decision.”
The store at 4217 Six Forks Rd., which opened in 1967 and is the oldest operating business in North Hills, will disappear after its closure as part of an expansion of the shopping center. The store’s site and an adjacent parking lot will begin to be redeveloped by Kane Realty later this year that will feature 12-story residential and commercial towers and an underground parking deck.
The pending closing also includes a Cary Towne Center location that will close on May 3. The JCPenney location in Durham at The Streets at Southpoint Mall will remain open.
So far this year, a total of 1,448 layoffs in North Carolina have been reported through the state Department of Commerce’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, commonly known as WARN notices.
