Pharmacy giant Walgreens will no longer give most of its employees paid time off for Thanksgiving, Christmas and other major holidays, shortly after being acquired by a private equity firm for $10 billion.
The pharmacy chain is eliminating six days of paid vacation for hourly store employees and notified them of the change in early October, Bloomberg first reported. The move comes about a month after the company was acquired by Sycamore Partners.
Walgreens, which has struggled in recent years, announced plans to close about 1,200 unprofitable stores across the United States in 2024 as part of a strategy to offset declining profits due to low drug reimbursement rates and weak retail sales.
After acquiring Sycamore, the company cut costs by reducing paid time off and laying off about 80 employees in October, mostly from its communications team, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.
Full-time employees at Walgreens were paid even if they didn’t work holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day, as long as they met requirements such as working six months, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg.
But now employees must work on holidays to earn pay and are eligible for additional holiday pay. Neither Walgreens nor Sycamore Partners immediately responded to USA TODAY’s requests for comment.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Contact us at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow us at X @fern_cerv_.
