If you live in Wisconsin, you should be paying attention to the health major employers like Kohl’s
A Dairyland Sentinel Perspectives Column by Brian Fraley
Yesterday’s earnings announcements from Kohl’s were a mixed bag, at best. The company beat profit expectations, which looked good on a ticker. But revenue is still sliding. For anyone watching from Wisconsin, the revenue miss is the real story. This isn’t just a retail trend. It is a potential crisis for our state’s economic infrastructure.
Kohl’s is woven into Wisconsin. It has been for almost a century. Maxwell Kohl started with a grocery store in Milwaukee in 1927. He opened the first department store in Brookfield in 1962. Even as ownership shifted to British American Tobacco and then back to private investors, the company never left. It stayed here. When so many others left, Kohl’s stayed.
Today, Kohl’s employs almost nine thousand people in Wisconsin. Four thousand of them are at the Menomonee Falls headquarters. The rest work in forty two stores across the state. These are our neighbors. They are managers, cashiers, and logistics pros. When a company this big wobbles, the impact isn’t theoretical. It’s local.
The strategy has shifted constantly. We saw the Amazon returns partnership launch in 2017. It brought people through the doors, but the long term payoff is debatable. Now, the company is pulling back from that program. Then came Sephora. The “shop-in-shops” attracted a younger crowd, but they haven’t stopped the broader sales leak.
The revolving door in the CEO’s office hasn’t helped. We’ve seen three leaders in a very short window. Tom Kingsbury left in early 2025. Ashley Buchanan had a brief stint. Now Michael J. Bender is in charge. He has the resume, with time at Walmart and PepsiCo. But retail, especially brick and mortar retail is a brutal business right now. Constant leadership changes make it hard to stick to any plan.
The stock market is skeptical. Shares have been down for years. We saw a brief spike recently from meme-stock traders, similar to what happened with GameStop. It was noise. It had nothing to do with how the company actually operates. Once the online chatter died down, the price settled again. Serious investors are still waiting for a reason to believe in the turnaround.
I am not a retail analyst nor a stock broker. I am looking at this as someone who cares about Wisconsin and pays attention to the institutions that shape our communities. But the people who do follow this industry for a living are raising similar concerns. The professionals are watching the same trend line the rest of us are, and they are not brushing it off.
If Kohl’s stumbles, the ripple effects will move fast. A hit to the Menomonee Falls headquarters would be devastating. Those four thousand jobs are specialized. They aren’t easily replaced in the region. The stores across Wisconsin anchor small to mid-sized shopping centers that rely on that foot traffic. If Kohl’s goes, the smaller tenants often follow. Local tax bases would feel the pinch almost immediately.
The company is already cutting. They closed twenty seven stores across fifteen states last year. Wisconsin was spared, but the warning shot was fired. Kohl’s is under intense pressure to trim the fat.
Wisconsin needs Kohl’s to win. This company is a community partner to several local charitable causes and a massive employer. The concern isn’t about one quarter of data, it is about the direction of the last several years. If Bender can steady the ship, the whole state benefits. If he can’t, the cost will be paid by workers and families here who have counted on Kohl’s for generations.
We need to watch this closely, and not because it may impact your 401k. We should pay attention, not with panic, but with a clear head and an understanding of what’s at stake. The company’s fate will impact not only Southeast Wisconsin, but in cities all across the state.
When a pillar of Wisconsin business is shaky the impact reaches far beyond a balance sheet and insider news sites. It impacts our neighbors personally.
I want Kohl’s to thrive. But I’m worried.
Originally published March 11, 2026
