Last month, Wayfair announced it would lay off around 10 percent of its global workforce in the coming months. Now the first round of the home goods retailer’s job cuts is set to begin in a matter of weeks.
The Boston-based company announced in January it would eliminate 1,750 jobs in its second round of layoffs in six months. Wayfair laid off about half that many people in August. Around 937 of the workers in this latest round of layoffs are based in Massachusetts.
According to a letter sent to employees from co-founder and CEO Niraj Shah, some of the departments affected include marketing/creative, curated merchandising, supplier communication, talent and technology.
“The changes today are largely about reducing management layers, right-sizing in certain places, and reorganizing to be more efficient,” Shah said in the Jan. 20 letter. “We want to reduce time spent in meetings and allow teams to own their remit.”
Shah said the company had grown too big, and that its operating expenses—roughly half of which are corporate headcount—had grown relative to revenue.
“We do not believe these changes reduce our addressable market or long-term opportunity, and we are continuing to invest in the future,” he said in the memo. “We are not sacrificing tomorrow while we refocus today.”
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Laid off Wayfair employees in the United States will receive a minimum of 10 weeks’ pay, along with benefits and vesting of existing equity through March, when jobs will be officially terminated.
Pandemic-induced demand for home goods swelled Wayfair’s earnings 55 percent in 2020, but sales declined by 3 percent the following year as vaccines rolled out and people began to return to a more normalized lifestyle.
Wayfair joins a spate of companies laying off workers in 2023. Several tech and media companies have recently announced layoffs, as has Wayfair competitor Amazon, which will lay off 18,000 this year.
The e-tailer has also struggled to maintain market share, according to one data cruncher also chronicling Bed Bath & Beyond‘s misfortunes.