--- title: "Victoria's Secret Closed 38 Stores and Opened 48 in…" canonical: "https://www.metaintro.com/blog/victorias-secret-store-churn-retail-jobs" language: "en" author: "drashtigarach" published: "2026-09-07T10:29:29.000Z" modified: "2026-10-02T19:47:15.440Z" --- [Back to Blog](/blog) [Jobs](/blog/tag/jobs)[Hiring](/blog/tag/hiring)[Labor Market](/blog/tag/labor-market) # Victoria's Secret Closed 38 Stores and Opened 48 in the Same Seven Months Victoria's Secret closed 38 stores and opened 48 between January and August, ending with 1,430 locations and a raised full-year sales outlook. [![Drashti Garach](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:40:40/q:72/plain/images/5719d740-e510-42bc-8017-e040d145f35f_1766029465094.png)Drashti Garach @DrashtiGarach](/blog/author/drashtigarach) [September 7, 2026](/blog/archive/2026/09)Updated October 2, 202612 min read ![An emptied shop with bare shelving and one garment rail in a shaft of light](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:1200:675/q:78/plain/images/10173-stripped-store-lightshaft.png) [https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=Victoria's%20Secret%20Closed%2038%20Stores%20and%20Opened%2048%20in%20the%20Same%20Seven%20Months&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fvictorias-secret-store-churn-retail-jobs](https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=Victoria's%20Secret%20Closed%2038%20Stores%20and%20Opened%2048%20in%20the%20Same%20Seven%20Months&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fvictorias-secret-store-churn-retail-jobs)[http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fvictorias-secret-store-churn-retail-jobs](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fvictorias-secret-store-churn-retail-jobs)[https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fvictorias-secret-store-churn-retail-jobs&title=Victoria's%20Secret%20Closed%2038%20Stores%20and%20Opened%2048%20in%20the%20Same%20Seven%20Months](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fvictorias-secret-store-churn-retail-jobs&title=Victoria's%20Secret%20Closed%2038%20Stores%20and%20Opened%2048%20in%20the%20Same%20Seven%20Months)[mailto:?subject=Victoria's%20Secret%20Closed%2038%20Stores%20and%20Opened%2048%20in%20the%20Same%20Seven%20Months&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fvictorias-secret-store-churn-retail-jobs](mailto:?subject=Victoria's%20Secret%20Closed%2038%20Stores%20and%20Opened%2048%20in%20the%20Same%20Seven%20Months&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fvictorias-secret-store-churn-retail-jobs) [Fast Company reported](https://www.fastcompany.com/91602651/victorias-secret-quietly-closed-38-stores-what-shoppers-should-know) on September 4 that [Victoria's Secret](https://www.victoriassecret.com/) closed 38 stores worldwide between January 31 and August 31. The number that changes the story is the one alongside it: in the same period the company opened 48, taking its total to 1,430. At [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com), we look at both halves of a store count because retail closures make headlines while retail openings rarely do, and the difference between the two decides whether jobs are disappearing or moving. Here is what the numbers actually show and what they mean if you work in retail. ## Is Victoria's Secret Shrinking or Not? Not on the store count, and the pattern is consistent across two years. Between the end of January and the end of August, the company closed 38 locations and opened 48, a net addition of ten. Last year it closed 78 and opened 111, a net addition of 33. A chain that has added stores in consecutive years while closing dozens is not retreating from physical retail. It is churning its estate. The financial picture matches. On the earnings call, [Victoria's Secret & Co](https://www.victoriassecretandco.com/) reported second quarter net sales up 10 percent year over year, near the high end of its guidance, with operating income and earnings per share both exceeding the high end. Management described it as the fifth consecutive quarter of positive comparable sales. Growth had been 15 percent in the first quarter, so the rate slowed, but a business closing stores because it is failing does not usually raise its full-year outlook at the same time. That combination is why the closure figure on its own is misleading. Thirty-eight closures is a real number and the people who worked in those 38 stores experienced a real disruption. But reporting it without the 48 openings produces a story about decline in a company that is growing, and for anyone making career decisions on the back of retail headlines, that distinction is the whole point. ## Why Would a Growing Retailer Close Stores at All? Because the estate it built no longer matches where its customers are. Store portfolios accumulate over decades through leases signed for a different shopping pattern, in malls with different footfall, in formats designed for a different customer. Closing a store in a declining location and opening one in a growing location is ordinary portfolio management, and it happens continuously at every large chain. The company's stated direction is explicit about the format changing rather than the channel. It described rethinking its physical footprint while investing in a new generation of stores designed to attract younger customers, and the chief executive pointed to particularly strong new customer growth among 18 to 24 year olds. A store built to serve that customer is a different physical object from one built fifteen years ago, which frequently means a new site rather than a refit. There is a broader retail pattern here that gets lost in coverage of closures. [Dollar Tree and Starbucks have been opening stores](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/dollar-tree-starbucks-new-stores-retail-hiring-2026) while the sector's narrative has been about decline, and [Buc-ee's expansion has been creating retail jobs](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/bucees-expanding-what-growth-means-retail-jobs) at scale. Physical retail is not contracting uniformly. It is redistributing, and the jobs move with it. ## What Does Store Churn Mean for Retail Workers? Geographic disruption without net job loss, which is a genuinely different problem from redundancy and gets far less support. If your store closes and a new one opens forty miles away, the company has not reduced headcount but you may still lose your job, because the commute makes the transfer impractical. Aggregate numbers that show a chain growing do not capture that. The practical consequence is that the most valuable thing you can know is whether your employer is closing or opening in your region specifically. National figures are close to useless for an individual decision. A chain adding ten net stores could be adding thirty in one country and removing twenty in yours, and the person affected is the one who reads the national number and assumes their position is safe. The second consequence is that transfers are worth asking about early and directly. Retailers going through portfolio churn frequently prefer to move experienced staff into new sites rather than recruit and train from scratch, particularly for supervisory roles. That preference is strongest before the closure is announced publicly and weakest once everyone is applying at once. If your store is in a location that feels quiet, the conversation to have with your area manager is about where the company is opening rather than whether your store is closing. ## Which Retail Roles Are Most Secure Right Now? The ones tied to formats that are being built rather than formats that are being retired. A company opening a new generation of stores aimed at younger customers needs people who can run those specific environments, which typically means more emphasis on experience, styling, fitting and content than on till operation and stock replenishment. That shift is visible in the skills retailers are hiring for. Visual merchandising is one of the clearest examples, because a store built as a brand experience depends on it in a way that a warehouse-format store does not, and [becoming a visual merchandiser](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-to-become-a-visual-merchandiser) is a route with a defined skill set rather than a vague one. The same applies to roles that bridge physical and digital, which the company touched on when describing live shopping events run from a store. There is a related development worth watching. [Gap has been turning its own employees into brand creators](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/gap-employees-brand-creators-job-seekers), which converts store staff into content producers as part of the job. Whether that appeals to you or not, it is a real change in what retail work involves, and staff who can do it are becoming more valuable to employers than staff who cannot. Retail is not deskilling in the way it is often described. Parts of it are doing the opposite. ## What Does the National Data Say About Retail Work? Flat, which is a more useful description than either growth or collapse. The [US Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/) reports that [retail sales workers](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/sales/retail-sales-workers.htm) numbered 4,271,400 in 2025, with median pay of $35,560 a year and no formal educational credential typically required to enter. The projected outlook to 2035 is 0 percent, representing a net change of about negative 5,700 positions across the entire decade. A flat occupation of that size behaves very differently from a shrinking one, and the difference matters for anyone deciding whether retail is a dead end. The agency notes that openings are driven primarily by turnover and retirement rather than by growth. In an occupation with more than four million positions, that produces a large and continuous flow of vacancies every year regardless of whether the total is rising. Retail remains one of the most accessible entry points into paid work in the economy, and that is not changing. What the flat projection does tell you is that the number of retail jobs is not where the opportunity lies. Progression is. The gap between a retail sales worker at $35,560 and a store manager, regional supervisor, buyer or merchandiser is substantial, and it is reached through demonstrated operational responsibility rather than through formal qualifications. In a stable occupation, the people who do well are the ones who move up rather than the ones who wait for the sector to expand. That is the honest read of this data, and it applies whether your particular employer is opening stores or closing them. ## How Should You Read Retail Headlines From Now On? Ask for the other number. Any story about closures should be checked against openings, and any story about openings should be checked against closures, because chains routinely do both at once and reporting usually leads with whichever is more dramatic. A company that closed 38 and opened 48 is a different employer from one that closed 38 and opened none, and the headline frequently cannot tell you which you are looking at. Then check the direction of the financials separately. Store count and financial health can diverge in both directions. A chain can close stores while growing, as here, or keep stores open while heading toward insolvency. [Lululemon cutting its outlook](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/lululemon-cuts-outlook-slowing-retail-workers-jobs-2026) and [Party City returning after a collapse](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/party-city-comeback-staples-retail-workers-jobs-2026) are two ends of that spectrum, and neither was predictable from store numbers alone. Finally, separate the brand story from the labour story. Victoria's Secret has spent several years rebuilding its position with younger customers through its fashion show, celebrity collaborations and digital events, and that is a genuinely interesting commercial narrative. It tells you very little about whether the company is a good employer or where it is hiring. Those are different questions with different sources, and conflating them is the most common mistake people make when choosing a retail employer. ## Where Can You Check Whether Retail Is Actually Growing? Two public sources settle most arguments, and neither is behind a paywall. The [US Census Bureau](https://www.census.gov/retail/index.html) publishes monthly retail trade figures showing what consumers are actually spending across categories, which is the demand side of the question. If sales in a category are rising while store counts fall, the shift is toward fewer, larger or more digital outlets rather than away from the category. If both are falling, the sector is genuinely contracting. The [National Retail Federation](https://nrf.com/) publishes industry-level analysis and employment commentary from the trade side, which is useful for understanding how retailers themselves describe conditions. Read it knowing it represents an industry position, but it is frequently the earliest public indication of where chains plan to open, close or hire seasonally. Put those alongside the occupational data and you can answer the question that matters for your own position. Is consumer spending in my category holding up, is my employer opening or closing in my region, and is the occupation I am in growing, flat or shrinking nationally. Those three answers together are far more reliable than any headline about a single chain, and all three are available free in under twenty minutes. Most people making a career decision in retail never look at any of them, which is precisely why store closure headlines cause more alarm than the underlying data justifies. ## What Should You Do If Your Store Is Closing? Move first on the transfer question, because the window is short and the supply of internal roles is fixed. Ask specifically which sites in your region are opening or expanding in the next twelve months, whether relocation support exists, and whether your service is preserved on transfer. Service continuity matters more than most people realise, since it affects notice entitlements, redundancy calculations and holiday accrual. Get your record together while you still have access to it. Sales figures for your store or department, any training you completed, systems you can operate and supervisory responsibilities you actually held are all things that are much harder to evidence after you leave. Retail experience is frequently undersold on a CV because people describe the job title rather than the scope, and a supervisor who ran rotas, stock and a team of twelve should say so in those terms. Then look sideways rather than only along. The operational skills built in a store, including scheduling, stock control, cash handling, customer resolution and team supervision, transfer directly into hospitality, logistics, healthcare administration and facilities work, all of which have been hiring. [Service jobs across retail, hospitality and field service](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/service-jobs-explained-retail-hospitality-field-service) share more overlap than their job titles suggest, and the pay at the destination is frequently better than the pay at the origin. ## Related Articles - [Massachusetts Bakery Closure Leaves Hundreds Jobless](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/bakery-closure-massachusetts) - [Bass Pro Shops Hosts a Hiring Event for the Holiday Season](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/bass-pro-hiring-event-holiday-2023) - [Dine Brands Announces Corporate Layoffs Amid Industry Challenges](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/dine-brands-cuts-jobs) - [Richemont Embraces Automation in Luxury Brand Hiring](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/richemont-automate-hiring) - [Gen Z Is Now Out-Earning Millennials at the Same Age](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/gen-z-out-earning-millennials-same-age-why) - [PepsiCo Closes a Production Facility With Layoffs](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/pepsico-closes-production-facility-layoffs) - [Steelworkers Seek Employment Support Amid a Furnace Closure](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/port-talbot-steelworkers-job-disruption) - [The New Rules of Work in a Multigenerational Office](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/new-rules-work-multigenerational-office-gen-z-era) - [ADP's Latest Data Signals Trouble Ahead for Small Business Hiring](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/adp-data-small-business-hiring-job-seekers-2026) - [Baystate Health Expands Its Workforce After a Medical Practice Closure](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/baystate-health-expansion-springfield-practice-closure) - [Sesame Workshop Announces Layoffs Amid Funding Challenges](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/sesame-workshop-job-cuts) - [Understanding Today's Graduate Job Market and Brand Strategy Trends](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/navigating-job-market-graduate-employment-brand-identity) ## People Also Asked ### Q: Is Victoria's Secret closing down? A: No. Between January 31 and August 31 the company closed 38 stores globally and opened 48, taking its total to 1,430 locations. It followed a similar pattern last year, closing 78 and opening 111. Second quarter net sales rose 10 percent year over year and the company raised its full-year outlook, so the closures reflect portfolio churn rather than contraction. ### Q: Do store closures always mean job losses? A: Not necessarily in aggregate, but frequently for the individuals involved. A chain that closes one store and opens another has the same number of jobs overall, yet a worker whose store shut may still lose their role if the new site is not commutable. That is why national store counts are a poor guide to your own position and why the regional picture matters far more. ### Q: What retail skills are worth building right now? A: The ones tied to formats retailers are still opening, which currently means experience-led stores aimed at younger customers. Visual merchandising, styling and fitting expertise, and roles that bridge in-store and digital selling are all growing in importance, alongside the operational skills of scheduling, stock control and team supervision that transfer into hospitality, logistics and healthcare administration. Retail headlines report closures far more often than openings, which makes the sector look like it is shrinking when much of it is simply moving. [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com) tracks retail hiring by employer and location so you can see where the stores and the jobs are actually going. 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