Nordstrom will shutter its Canadian operations.
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Layoffs have started trickling into the retail sector, primarily impacting corporate employees.
Nordstrom, Walmart, Poshmark, and more have made job cuts since the start of the year.
Still, few retailers are laying off store employees as the “labor hoarding” trend continues in 2023.
Layoffs have officially arrived in the retail sector.
Since the start of 2023, major retailers ranging from department stores to direct-to-consumer brands have cut staff, the latest swing in a sector that’s been hit hard by labor challenges and inflation.
Most of the cuts so far have impacted corporate retail employees. At a store level, many retailers are actually holding tighter to workers than usual, even seasonal employees, in a practice economists call “labor hoarding.” Still, less than three months into the year, over a dozen companies have already announced layoffs impacting hundreds, sometimes thousands of employees.
Here are the retailers who have announced layoffs in 2023:
Gopuff: The delivery startup laid off more than 100 employees, or about 2% of its workforce, Bloomberg reported. It’s Gopuff’s third round of layoffs in the last year. Zulily: The online retailer cut an undisclosed number of its nearly 2,000 corporate employees in an effort to trim expenses, Puget Sound Business Journal reported. Nordstrom: The company is shuttering is Canadian operations by late June, citing no realistic path to profitability. About 2,500 employees will be cut as a result.Poshmark: Roughly two months after being acquired by South Korean web firm Naver, Poshmark laid off less than 2% of its US workforce. Its global workforce totals over 800, according to the company’s LinkedIn page.Walmart: The big box store chain is closing two stores in Portland, Oregon, resulting in 480 layoffs, according to documents filed with the state. The company is also closing three tech hubs in Texas, Oregon, and California and offering those employees the option to relocate to its Arkansas headquarters or accept a severance packageThe RealReal, founded in 2011, sells secondhand luxury clothing.
Brian Ach/Invision for The RealReal/AP Images
The RealReal: The luxury consignment company cut 230 employees, about 7% of its workforce.Lidl: Around 200 US-based corporate employees were let go from the German grocery chain. Neiman Marcus: The high-end department store cut 5% of staff amid a “strategic realignment to accelerate high value luxury customer growth.” REI: 167 corporate employees were laid off from the outdoors retailer in February, roughly 8% of the company’s headquarters staff and 1% of its total workforce. Stitch Fix: About 20% of the brand’s salaried workforce of 1,700 employees were cut in January amid slowing sales and a shrinking customer base.An Everlane store in San Francisco.
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Everlane: 17% of the direct-to-consumer clothing brand’s corporate staff and less than 3% of retail workforce were cut in an effort to “improve profitability in 2023.”Wayfair: The online home goods retailer cut 1,750 jobs, or about 10% of its workforce in January. The majority of the layoffs, about 1,200 positions, were corporate employees in an effort to “eliminate management layers and reorganize to be more agile,” Wayfair said. Saks.com: At least 100 positions were eliminated at the e-commerce branch of Saks Fifth Avenue, or about 3.5% of its staff. Saks Off 5th’s e-commerce site also conducted layoffs, though it’s unclear how many workers were impacted. The Bay: The e-commerce arm of Canadian department store Hudson’s Bay laid off less than 2% of its employees.
AP/Ted S. Warren
Ruggable: The direct-to-consumer rug brand cut 100 corporate jobs in what the company said was a move to better position it for “today’s challenging economic environment.”Amazon: About 18,000 employees were laid off in January, many of them focused on the e-commerce giant’s brick-and-mortar retail business. Zappos: More than 300 workers, or about a fifth of the workforce, were cut from the Amazon-owned online shoe brand as part of the January layoffs.