Walgreens cuts 6 paid holidays for hourly workers

Pharmacy giant Walgreens will no longer give most of its workers paid vacation time for Thanksgiving, Christmas and other major holidays, just after being bought out by a private equity company for $10 billion.

First reported by Bloomberg, the pharmacy chain eliminated six paid holidays for hourly store workers, informing them of the change in early October. The move came about a month after it was bought out by Sycamore Partners.

Walgreens, which has been struggling in recent years, announced in 2024 that it planned to close about 1,200 underperforming stores across the U.S. as part of a strategy to offset declining profits driven by low drug reimbursement rates and sluggish retail sales.

More: Walgreens to be taken private by Sycamore in $10 billion deal

Following Sycamore’s acquisition, the company cut costs by reducing paid holidays and terminating around 80 corporate employees in October, mostly from the communication team, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.

Documents obtained by Bloomberg show that full-time Walgreens employees were paid even if they didn’t work on holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day as long as they met requirements, such as working at the company for 6 months.

But now, employees must work on holidays to get paid and will be eligible for extra holiday pay.Neither Walgreens or Sycamore Partners immediately responded to USA TODAY’s request for comment.

Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Walgreens removes 6 paid holidays for hourly workers