by BOSTON — Online home furnishings retailer Wayfair said Friday that it plans to lay off another 1,750 workers, which represents 10% of its global workforce. It also includes about 1,200, or 18% of its corporate employees, as of Dec. 31.
The company said the move reflects efforts to eliminate management layers and reorganize to become more agile. Combined with a previous layoff announced this past August, it represents an estimated cost savings of $750 million a year.
Wayfair also said that as a result of the reduction, it expects to incur an estimated $68 million to $78 million in costs, which primarily consists of employee severance and benefits. Most of these costs, it said, are expected to occur in the first quarter of this year.
It added that the estimated amounts also do not include any non-cash charges associated with stock-based compensation and that it may also incur charges and expenditures not currently expected because of unanticipated events moving forward.
The layoffs are in addition to those it announced in August, which reduced its workforce by 5%, or 870 workers. The latest round would leave it with an estimated 15,750 workers.
The news comes just two months after the company reported its Q3 revenues for the quarter ended Sept. 30 fell 9%, to $2.8 billion, from $3.1 billion the same period the year prior. During the third quarter, it also reported a net loss of $283 million up from a net loss of $78 million the same period in 2021.
For the first nine months of the year, it reported revenues of $9.1 billion, down 12.8% from the $10.5 billion it reported for the same period in 2021. Its net loss for the first nine months of 2022 was nearly $1 billion.
News of Wayfair’s layoffs comes on the heels of Amazon’s plans to lay off 8,000 workers in addition to the 10,000 reported in November. Combined, these are said to be the largest layoffs in Amazon’s 28-year history.
Efforts to reach Wayfair for an immediate comment were unsuccessful on Thursday, when news reports of the layoffs first surfaced.
On Thursday, Wayfair’s stock price fell 5.17% to $38.92. It is down 75% over the past 12 months.
