Things continue to look bad for Borders: According to a report by Paula Gardner at AnnArbor.com, yesterday morning an email from Shereen Solaiman, senior v.p. of human resources, announced the company was “moving forward with the unfortunate but necessary step of reducing our payroll by eliminating 124 corporate positions and 40 positions in our (distribution center)s,” which Gardner says is “about 10 percent of its corporate workforce and 12 percent of staff at its Ann Arbor headquarters.” Solaiman explained the move: “As you saw in our holiday sales release, we have not succeeded in improving our sales and, as a result, must make further adjustments to our cost structure.” Company spokesperson Anne Roman reiterated, “This is a situation where the company is adjusting its payroll to the realities of what its sales situation is.”

And that may not be the last of it: Roman says that “While at this time we do not plan further wide-scale corporate payroll reductions, of course, we cannot guarantee that there will not be job eliminations in the future” — and in fact seems to say more are coming: “Currently, we are in the process of evaluating our store payroll and expect to make changes in our stores over the coming weeks.”

What’s more, while “”There are no plans for any widespread store closures,” that too is starting to sound likely: “That’s a matter of adjusting to sales, which the company does on an ongoing basis.”

Is the end nigh? One of the laid-off employees tells reporter Gardner, “”Maybe they will just be online like Circuit City. If they can get direction and change culture, maybe. Morale was bad while I was there.”