Shoppers Food has laid off 185 employees across Maryland following the closure of four additional stores in November, including the longtime Germantown location at 18066 Mateny Road.
Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications (WARN) posted this week to the Maryland Department of Labor show that 59 employees were terminated at the Germantown store alone, the highest total of the four shuttered locations.
The Germantown Shoppers permanently closed on Saturday, November 1, ending nearly 30 years of operation. The store first opened in 1995 and had long served as a grocery anchor for the surrounding community. By November 8, three other Maryland locations had also closed: College Park, Laurel, and Capitol Heights. According to the WARN notices, 58 workers were laid off in College Park, 46 in Laurel, and 22 in Capitol Heights.
BizJournals reports that while terminated employees were eligible to apply for positions at remaining Shoppers locations, union agreements allowed for “bumping rights,” meaning workers with greater seniority could retain jobs over those with fewer years of service. In practice, this meant some displaced employees faced limited opportunities or would have needed to relocate to significantly farther stores.
A former Germantown Shoppers employee told The MoCoShow she accepted a comparable position at a different grocery chain, though her new role pays roughly 25 percent less than what she earned at Shoppers. She said she chose to stay local rather than transfer to a much farther Shoppers store so she could remain close to home and available for her children in case of emergencies.
The closures mark the latest round of Shoppers’ footprint reduction in the region, continuing a trend that has reshaped the grocery landscape in Montgomery County and neighboring jurisdictions. The company has not publicly announced plans for additional closures, but the November layoffs represent another substantial contraction for the chain’s presence in Maryland.
