Sam's Club Closing Two Ohio Stores

CINCINNATI, OH — A pair of Ohio Sam's Clubs will be shut down, according to filings with the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services. Dozens of the retail store's locations shut their doors this week in a surprise shuttering.

Stores in Cincinnati and Loveland will layoff more than 280 combined employees between March and April 2018. Both stores filed closing notices with the ODJFS on Thursday night.

Employees were told about the closing on Thursday, when the stores were officially closed to the public. Hourly employees will be laid off on March 16, while salaried employees will stay on until April 13.

"After a thorough review of our existing portfolio, we've decided to close a series of clubs and better align our locations with our strategy," Sam's Club said in a post on Twitter on Thursday afternoon. "Closing clubs is never easy and we're committed to working with impacted members and associates through this transition."

Sam's Club is an offshoot of Walmart that requires yearly membership and is known for selling items in bulk, offering many items at discount.

Walmart is closing 63 Sam's Clubs stores nationwide, the Business Insider reports. The abrupt closings also came on the same day that Walmart announced plans to raise starting hourly wages to $11, expand employee benefits, and offer workers bonuses of up to $1,000, according to Business Insider.

A number of major retailers from various industries have already announced plans to close stores in the U.S. in 2018. The latest round of store closures follow a year where many brick and mortar shops threw in the towel in 2017.

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