Target is laying off around 1,000 corporate employees and cutting another 800 open roles, the company said Thursday.
The company said in a memo to staff that the roles being cut accounted for about 8% of its global headquarters team.
Michael Fiddelke, Target COO and incoming CEO, said in the memo that the changes were intended to help the company move faster and simplify workflows.
“The truth is, the complexity we’ve created over time has been holding us back,” he said. “Too many layers and overlapping work have slowed decisions, making it harder to bring ideas to life.”
Fiddelke said the company was asking all employees at its US headquarters to work from home next week as the changes are implemented, and that details about the cuts would be announced on Tuesday.
Target said leadership roles at the company were affected at three times the rate of individual contributors. Those affected will be notified on Tuesday, and the company has asked US employees to work from home.
An employee, who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak with the media, at Target headquarters told Business Insider they first got wind of potential cuts early on Thursday after the owner of a car service in Minneapolis posted a TikTok about the rumored layoffs, and it started going viral.
Things got eerily quiet after that, the employee said, until the memo from Fiddelke was sent out around 2:55 p.m. local time.
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“It’s just total panic right now, nobody knows. We’re all trying to figure out if we’re essential team that’s going to be kept,” the employee said.
Regarding the company’s instruction that all staff work from home next week, the employee said that when Target had mass corporate layoffs in 2015, there were lines of people leaving headquarters with boxes of their belongings, adding, “They don’t want that optic outside, so it’s easier for us to just stay home.”
The cuts come as Target has been struggling. The retail giant has lagged in sales growth compared to its competitors, delivering underwhelming financial results over the past few years.
“While there is some truth in Target’s assertion that its job cuts are a consequence of simplification, they are also the result of a business that has been underperforming for a long time and has been operationally weak,” Neil Saunders, retail analyst and managing director of GlobalData, told Business Insider.
“Regardless of how the cost pie is cut, it also needs to be accompanied by a change of culture at Target,” he added.
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