Sears Holdings Corp, the largest US department-store company, will stop matching contributions to its workers’ retirement plans on January 31.
Sears, based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, told employees of the change on December 29, spokeswoman Kimberly Freely said on Sunday in an e-mail.
The company will resume the 401k matching programme when its “financial performance improves to a level adequate to support” them, she said without elaborating.
Sears is among US companies grappling with declining sales as consumers besieged by shrinking home values and climbing jobless rates curtail spending.
Motorola Inc, the second-largest US seller of mobile phones, said last month it’s freezing US pension plans and reducing executive salaries.
Sears recorded a $91 million expense for retirement savings plans in 2007, according to the annual report it filed on March 26. Freely declined to estimate how much the company will save by not matching employee contributions.
Sears rose $2.62, or 6.7 per cent, to $41.49 at 4:30 pm in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The shares dropped 62 per cent last year, compared with a 32 per cent decline in the 27- member Standard & Poor’s 500 Retailing Index.