Dish to close 300 Blockbuster stores, lay off 3,000 workers

After closing 650 Blockbuster stores last year, Dish Network Corp. now plans to shut down an additional 300 stores in the coming weeks and lay off 3,000 Blockbuster employees, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The layoffs represent about 40 percent of the ailing video chain's current workforce of 7,300. When Dish bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy court in 2011 for $226 million, it inherited 1,700 stores. As recently as 2005, Blockbuster had 5,700 U.S. outlets.