Walgreens is finalizing a plan to fix its U.S. business that could result in closing hundreds of additional stores over the next three years.

CEO Tim Wentworth told analysts Thursday morning that “changes are imminent” for about 25% of the company’s stores, which he said were underperforming. The drugstore chain currently runs more than 8,600 in the United States.

Wentworth said the company’s plan could include the closing of a “significant portion” of those roughly 2,100 underperforming stores if they don’t improve.

Company leaders said they’ve already closed 2,000 locations over the last 10 years. Overall, the company runs about 12,500 drugstores worldwide.

“We are at a point where the current pharmacy model is not sustainable and the challenges in our operating environment require we approach the market differently,” he said.

Walgreens and major competitors like CVS and Rite Aid — which is going through a bankruptcy reorganization — have been closing stores as they adjust to an array of challenges to their businesses. They include include years of tight reimbursement for their prescriptions and rising costs for running their locations.

GDP in U.S. for last quarter revised up slightly, to 1.4%

U.S. economic growth for last quarter is revised up slightly to a 1.4% annual rate

The American economy expanded at a 1.4% annual pace from January through March, the slowest quarterly growth since spring 2022, the government said Thursday in a slight upgrade from its previous estimate. Consumer spending grew at just a 1.5% rate, down from an initial estimate of 2%, in a sign that high interest rates may be taking a toll on the economy.

The Commerce Department had previously estimated that the gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — advanced at a 1.3% rate last quarter.

The first quarter’s GDP growth marked a sharp pullback from a strong 3.4% pace during the final three months of 2023. Still, Thursday’s report showed that the January-March slowdown was caused mainly by two factors — a surge in imports and a drop in business inventories — that can bounce around from quarter to quarter and don’t necessarily reflect the underlying health of the economy.

Imports shaved 0.82 percentage point off first-quarter growth. Lower inventories subtracted 0.42 percentage point.

Picking up the slack was business investment, which the government said rose at a 4.4% annual pace last quarter, up from its previous estimate of 3.2%. Higher investment in factories and other nonresidential buildings and in software and other types of intellectual property helped boost the increase.

Rivian Automotive gets $5 billion lifeline from Volkswagen AG

Rivian Automotive Inc. will get a much-needed cash infusion through a new partnership with Volkswagen AG as automakers large and small rethink their strategies in a slowing electric-vehicle market.

The companies announced plans for a joint venture supported by an initial $1 billion investment from VW in Rivian and up to $4 billion more over time.

In exchange, VW will get access to the startup’s technology for use in its own EVs and a partner to develop “next-generation” battery-powered vehicles and software.

Number of job openings declines sharply in every state in U.S.

The number of job openings has declined sharply in every state since 2022, better aligning the numbers of unfilled jobs and people seeking work.

Nationally, for the first time since before the pandemic, the number of job openings and unemployed people is roughly in balance: a little more than one opening per person looking for work, according to a Stateline analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. At the height of the labor shortage in 2022, there were two job openings per job seeker. As of April, the ratio was down to 1.2 openings per person.

But the proportion of workers to jobs ranges widely from state to state. In California, where layoffs in tech and the film industry have unsettled the job market, there is less than one opening per unemployed person. In North Dakota, where a brain drain has left a shortage of skilled and educated workers, there are almost three openings per unemployed person.

Compiled from Bloomberg and Associated Press reports.