A new plan for layoffs at Circuit City is openly targeting better-paid workers, risking a public backlash by implying that its wages are as subject to discounts as its flat-screen TVs. The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers -- immediately -- and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible. The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company's total work force, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said. Analysts and economists said the move is an uncertain experiment that could backfire for the chain.
See "Circuit City to Cut More Than 3,500 Jobs", Mae Anderson and Ellen Simon, San Francisco Chronicle, March 27, 2007