Staff at the troubled Allders store in Basildon were ordered to pack up their belongings and leave as part of immediate job cuts announced by the company.
The 23 redundancies came as thousands of bargain hunters deluged the store in the Eastgate Centre as prices were slashed to get rid of stock.
The company was put into administration two weeks ago following poor trading and a failure to find a buyer for the 143-year-old company.
The staff, many of who had worked there for years, were greeted with news of their redundancy on Friday morning and told to leave by the end of the day.
This came despite earlier assurances from the store's administrators that jobs would probably be safe.
One unnamed employee said: "We are all disgusted.
"I have been here for twenty years and don't even think I'll get a pension.
We've been kept in the dark all the way along and now we come in to be greeted by this."
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