Crain’s Headlines: Cost-Cutting at Walgreens Prompts Corporate Job Cuts


Walgreens has cut some corporate jobs as part of a plan to cut billions of dollars in costs over the next few years.

The company didn’t say how many people were let go, but a Tribune report pegged the number at 100 employees at its Deerfield headquarters.

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Earlier this year Walgreens announced plans to cut costs by $1.5 billion per year by 2022, and it’s now bumped that up to $1.8 billion annually.

Walgreens recently announced it was closing 200 U.S. store locations as it grapples with tightening margins on its retail and pharmacy business.

In other Chicago-area business news:

Another Chicago-based software company wants to roll the dice on going public.

Sprout Social, which makes software that companies use to manage their social media accounts filed a registration late last week to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering.

The nine-year-old company, which is backed by the co-founders of Groupon, said in its prospectus that its revenue rose by 76% last year to almost $79 million, but it still had plenty of red ink on its balance sheet – it lost $21 million on the year.

Sprout’s potential IPO comes at a fickle time in public markets when it comes to money-losing tech companies.

And as millions of baby boomers reach retirement age, many of them are ill-equipped to deal with housing costs.

That’s the finding of a new report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University showing more than a third of Chicago-area residents 65 and over pay more than 30% of their income on housing – that’s a higher share than the national trend.

One reason is not as many older U.S. households actually own their homes today – historically a source of financial security – and those that do are carrying more debt on their homes than in the past.

The report said in 2016, 46% of homeowners ages 65-79 had outstanding mortgages, up from 24% three decades ago.


Crain’s Headlines is a joint production between WTTW and Crain’s Chicago Business. It airs every Monday through Thursday on the WTTW News program “Chicago Tonight.” 


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