NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Leading luxury good retailer John Bull has confirmed that it has made the ‘tough decision’ to temporarily lay off all team members effective April 6.
The 91 year-old retailer noted that this year has presented the company and the world with a crisis of “unprecedented proportions”.
“With both local and tourist facing retail locations, John Bull temporarily closed its doors on Thursday March 20, in compliance with the Emergency Powers COVID-19 Orders 2020. As the health and well being of team members is always paramount , full salaries were maintained for team members throughout the past few weeks up to April 5. This approach is unfortunately unsustainable, despite cutting operational costs , if the company seeks to get to the better side of this crisis,” the company said.
The company further noted that in order to assist its staff get through this rough economic period it would make a payment to each employee equal to 50 per cent of their salary as an ex gratia payment through April 19 in addition to maintaining employee benefits.
“We can say with certainty that many of us have not witnessed anything quite like this in our lifetime but what we know for sure is together we will get through this and brighter days are on the horizon,” the company said.
On Wednesday the Cable Bahamas Group confirmed that it will temporarily lay-off 96 employees in response to the economic fall-out from the COVID-19 global pandemic.
