I found a couple of articles describing the laying off of seasonal employees for the holidays. Is that what you were talking about? One article explained how Costco hopes to hire some of those employees back by the Summer.

There was a store in East Harlem that had to drastically reduce it's size because of poor sales and laid off.

Costco froze corporate hiring in early 2009.

Not much in layoffs, though. They're also not laying off just to "bust the union" and make life miserable for its employees. Remember this a couple of years back?

Alaska Airlines fires 472 at Sea-Tac - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):