Best Buy Co. Inc. said yesterday that it would furlough about 51,000 hourly U.S. store employees and that its sales dropped about 5 percent in the first two months of the current quarter, as the electronics retailer kept its stores shut due to the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. The company said that starting next week, some corporate employees would also participate in voluntary reduced work weeks and furloughs, while its top management and board would take a pay cut. Best Buy, however, would retain about 82 percent of its full-time store and field employees. The company said sales grew about 25 percent during an 8-day period ended March 20, a day before the company announced its decision to switch to a curbside delivery model, as people shopped for work-from-home equipment, gaming-related products as well as products needed to freeze food. Best Buy added that domestic online sales surged over 250 percent from a year earlier, with half the sales coming from customers who picked-up their products from stores. However, store closures and decreased footfall have dented demand, and sales dropped 30 percent from March 21 through April 11, Best Buy said.
