At this pace, we'll be hearing about Chapter 11 sometime around this time next year.
I don't mean to minimize what people whose stores are closing are going through right now, but I honestly believe they are among the lucky ones (at least those who will receive severance.)
Once bankruptcy is announced, all the remaining employees can kiss any thoughts of severance goodbye.
Based on my record they have crossed the 700 store (Kmart and Sears stores) mark with the latest announcement of closures.
Take any vacation and sick leave now. You usually dont get paid for that if a company files for BK.
Best guess is 800 to 750 , with the stealth closings and current list , since May 5 2018 it's hard to judge because the store locators are still showing some that have already closed
Don't let the number of stores remaining and how many they're closing at a time fool you. If you think we'll only see a few dozen stores closed every once awhile and that it will take a year to close them all at that rate I think you might be mistaken. Pretty soon a closure of 40 or 50 stores at a time will start to be 10%, 20%, 30% of the stores left at a time. On top of that very good chance the possibility remains that larger closures of 100+ stores at a time could still happen. It all depends on how long the charade plays out and when keeping everything on life support no longer has any benefit.