Macy’s Red Light

Macy’s is closing 40 stores and cutting nearly 5,000 jobs nationwide after poor holiday sales. The nation’s largest department store chain, which also operates Bloomingdale’s, said it is reducing its profit outlook after seeing less physical shoppers in 2015 and more in online and mobile spending.

A spokesman said 2,110 layoffs will come from reduced staffing in retail locations, consolidation of regional store groups and eliminating duplication in back-office operations. Another 2,710 job cuts will come from Macy’s store closings that were announced in the fall; four closed at the end of last year, and 36 more locations were confirmed on Wednesday.

The list of stores closing in the spring include five N.Y. locations: The McKinley Mall main and home stores in Buffalo and shops in Horseheads’ Arnot Mall, Kingston’s Hudson Valley Mall and Williamsville’s Eastern Hills Mall. The Shoppingtown Mall location in Syracuse was shuttered in early 2015 with a dozen other stores in another round of closings. As of Wednesday, Macy’s had about 163,000 total workers.

Macy’s said sales at existing stores and excluding licensed departments fell 5.2 percent in November and December. The company blamed warm weather for reduced sales of winter clothing, but also said it saw lower spending by international tourists.

A spokesman said the company also saw more online business during the 2015 holiday season. For the November and December period, Macys.com and bloomingdales.com filled nearly 17 million online orders, up 25 percent from a year earlier.