In a memo sent to employees last week, Barnes & Noble Education CEO Mike Huseby reported that as of April 6, it is furloughing “the majority of the [Barnes & Noble College] workforce and a select number of employees from the company’s other segments” until further notice. The furloughs came, B&NE said, after it temporarily closed the majority of its campus bookstores “as the schools they served closed and/or transitioned to online learning.”
In the memo, Huseby explained that the company took the action because the business disruption caused by the new coronavirus has made it impossible to forecast future cash flows. “We need to do what is prudent today to create the best opportunity for BNED to emerge from this crisis in as strong a position as possible,” Huseby wrote. By furloughing employees, Huseby said, B&NE will be “well-positioned to resume normal operations as our schools reopen.“
While the majority of its college store employees are now on furlough, B&NE’s MBS Textbook Exchange subsidiary and its warehouse distribution operations in Columbia, Mo., continue to operate, “support[ing] of the delivery of course materials to the company’s virtual and physical store customers.”
