Advertisement

Buckle to Furlough Employees in its Fight Against Coronavirus

Buckle, Inc. BKE is the latest company to tighten its control measures with increasing cases of COVID-19 being reported each day. Notably, the novel coronavirus has been creating havoc worldwide by killing thousands of people and bringing the global economy to a standstill. In response, authorities have ordered shutdown of stores and manufacturing facilities, implemented social distancing and work from home options as well as travel bans.

Given the unprecedented impacts of this ongoing pandemic, Buckle has decided to furlough most of its employees, including store and corporate office workers, starting Apr 5. During this time, all employees will be offered full benefits, while those working will get a pay cut. Keeping in these lines, its chairman, president and chief executive officer have stepped forward to forgo their salaries till operations resume. Further, the company’s board members will also give up their respective cash retainers for the current quarter.

Similarly, retailers, including Macy’s M, L Brands LB and Kohl’s KSS, announced to put thousands of employees on leave. Notably, Macy’s is furloughing most of its 130,000 workers in the United States, per sources. Also, L Brands decided to furlough employees such as store associates and those who can’t work remotely to support the online business. Kohl’s is likely to grant leave to workers at its stores and store distribution centers.

Coming back to the news, Buckle has now extended store closures for an indefinite period in sync with the CDC guidelines and government regulations. However, online business will continue to operate. This move is part of the company’s aim to safeguard its employees and customers in such trying times.

Prior to this, management had announced to close all stores temporarily from Mar 18 to 31. Moreover, the company had then pledged to pay full benefits and salaries to all employees for the said period.

In the past three months, shares of this Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) company have slumped 47.3% compared with the industry’s decline of 49%.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Today's Best Stocks from Zacks 

Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2019, while the S&P 500 gained and impressive +53.6%, five of our strategies returned +65.8%, +97.1%, +118.0%, +175.7% and even +186.7%.

This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 – 2019, while the S&P averaged +6.0% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +54.7% per year.

See their latest picks free >>


Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
 
Macy's, Inc. (M) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Kohl's Corporation (KSS) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Buckle, Inc. (The) (BKE) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
L Brands, Inc. (LB) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
 
Zacks Investment Research