💥 “Too many layers. Too much overlap.” That’s the official reason Target just gave for cutting 1,800 corporate jobs — right before the holidays.
Let’s call it what it is:
A corporate hangover from years of over-hiring, over-layering, and under-leading.
While executives play musical chairs and consultants whisper “simplify” into boardrooms, real people — talented, loyal humans — are getting blindsided with a “Team Huddle” calendar invite that changes their lives.
Target says this isn’t about cost cutting.
But when you eliminate nearly 8% of your HQ workforce and scrap another 800 vacant roles, it sure looks like an “optimization” deck dressed in empathy fonts.
The saddest part?
They didn’t just lose roles. They lost trust, culture, and identity — piece by piece, meeting by meeting, memo by memo — until “Joy!” became a tagline instead of a truth.
And now, the same leaders who created the layers are holding “listening sessions” about the pain they caused.
Make it make sense.
If you’re still standing in retail or corporate America, take notes.
👉 Bloat is the first step toward bloodletting.
👉 “Simplify” means someone’s about to be sacrificed.
👉 And “we value our team” usually ends with a legal disclaimer.
The real headline isn’t that Target laid off 1,800 people.
It’s that every major company could be one reorg away from calling it “progress.”