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ANN ARBOR, Mich., Feb. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Borders Group today announced that it has reduced its corporate workforce by another 136 positions, which were eliminated effective today. The majority of the jobs, which represent about 12% of the corporate workforce but less than 1% of the company's total workforce, are based at the company's headquarters in Ann Arbor. The workforce reduction was spread across virtually all business areas, including marketing, human resources, field management and corporate sales. The reductions were made at various ranks, ranging from entry level to middle management. Affected employees are being offered transition pay, severance and job placement assistance. Today's changes follow the company's announcement just over two weeks ago that several top-level corporate positions had been eliminated to reduce management layers and help drive expense reductions.

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"While reducing payroll is never easy and we respect the impact it has on employees and their families, it is one of the necessary steps we must take along with other non-payroll expense reductions to help get this company back on track financially," said Chief Executive Officer Ron Marshall. "In this time of transition, I greatly admire the tenacity and focus that employees at all levels here have shown as we drive to significantly reduce expenses and bring other key financial measures in line. We will continue to move forward with deliberate speed to make the changes required to get Borders back on firm financial footing."

About Borders Group, Inc.

Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., Borders Group, Inc. (NYSE: BGP) is a leading retailer of books, music and movies with approximately 27,000 employees. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates more than 1,000 stores primarily under the Borders(R) and Waldenbooks(R) brand names and offers online shopping through Borders.com. For more information about the company, visit www.borders.com/aboutus.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. One can identify these forward-looking statements by the use of words such as "projects," "expect," "estimated," "look toward," "going forward," "continue," "maintain," "planning," "returning," "guidance," "goal," "will," "may," "intend," "anticipates," and other words of similar meaning. One can also identify them by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. These statements are likely to address matters such as the company's future financial performance or condition (including earnings per share, gross margins and inventory turns, liquidity, same-store sales, cost reduction initiatives, and anticipated capital expenditures and depreciation and amortization amounts) and its cost reduction initiatives and the benefits thereof. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and plans to differ materially from those included in the company's forward-looking statements.

These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, consumer demand for the company's products, particularly during the holiday season, which is believed to be related to general economic and geopolitical conditions, competition and other factors; the availability of adequate capital-including vendor credit-to fund the company's operations and to carry out its strategic plans and the performance of the company's information technology systems and the development of improvements to the systems necessary to implement the company's strategic plan.

The company's periodic reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission contain more detailed discussions of these and other risk factors that could cause actual results and plans to differ materially from those included in the forward-looking statements, and those discussions are incorporated herein by reference. The company does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements.