American mall owner Brookfield Properties has experienced a serious dent in its revenue due to the pandemic.
Consequently, the company has announced its decision to lay off 20 per cent of its workforce in its retail unit, as reported by CNBC.
The retail division consists of over 2,000 employees out of which the unfortunate lot found out about the job cut via a memo.
“While many companies were quick to implement furloughs and layoffs at the onset of the pandemic, we made the conscious decision to keep all our team employed while we gained a better understanding of its longer-term impact on our company,” Jared Chupaila, CEO of Brookfield Properties’ retail group, said to the employees in the memo.
The job cut is very sudden and while the employees are in shock, Brookfield has refused to comment on the situation.
Brookfield has been on the lookout for retail expansion for which it had bought GCP Inc. for US $ 9.25 billion in 2018. However, the rampant growth of e-commerce accelerated by the pandemic has put a damper of Brookfield’s plans for now.
The company is, hence, changing up its strategy to think long-term. They are looking to invest US $ 5 billion in companies that are struggling as a result of slow sales during the pandemic, making Brookfield a minority shareholder for when they emerge from this period.
Brookfield has more than 170 properties in 43 states across the US, including Brookfield Place downtown in NYC and Fashion Show Mall in Las Vegas.
