About 12,000 Sears Canada employees will be out of a job in the coming months after the retailer failed to secure a successful bid for the struggling department store chain.

“Assuming we receive the approval of the Court, this also means the elimination of all of our jobs over the course of the next few days to few months,” the company told employees in a letter sent out Tuesday.

Sears Canada - which has already closed 59 stores and announced the closure of another 11 - will now be seeking court approval on Friday to liquidate all its remaining assets, the company said. Executive chairman Brandon Stranzl had been working on a bid to save the company but has so far been unsuccessful.

The company said it will inform individual employees of their status in the coming days, but expects the liquidation to be wrapped up by early next year.

Employees will be offered help writing resumes and using LinkedIn, according to a Sears spokesperson. 

“The current plan is that liquidation sales at retail locations would commence no earlier than October 19 and continue for 10 to 14 weeks,” the letter said. “This is an extremely sad day for all of us and certainly not the outcome we wanted.”