I worked for Target HQ for 8 years in merch and moved on years ago and have seen first hand that this is typical in other companies. Get used to it Target people. The last 2 years is what the retail and CPG climate has been the better part of the last decade. Just locally, take note of what Best Buy, Supervalu, Advance Auto Parts, and even General Mills has been doing with constant rounds of layoffs on almost predictable cycles. It is a volatile competitive sales environment. Retailers have to actively monitor and react to keep their SG&A cost to a certain % of sales. Any good retailer with strong expense management knows this number on a weekly or monthly basis and reacts accordingly. Gregg knew nothing different having only worked at Target. Cornell has been around and knows all too well and doing what is necessary. If sales or profits dip, the expense line needs to as well. If sales rise YOY, then all is good. But stagnant and declining numbers should always signify that a re-org is on the horizon. Plus, have to make up for losses in Canada, unplanned costs associated with dats breach, and now Walmart is going to force their hand at raising store wages. Writing on the wall...this simply needed to happen to stabilize financials. There was no other choice. Streaming talk is all a bunch of b.s. word smithing...it is financial viability to make up for past mistakes and future impacts to store labor.
5 replies (most recent on top)
I work for a competitor since 2002, never had layoffs at the HQ. We do cut people based on performance.
I started late 90's and left a few years ago. 2 layoffs in my 13 years there. I think there have been more in the last 2 years than all of my time there.
I have worked at HQ since 2007 and this is the 5th round of layoffs I've had to sweat through.
Layoffs are a part of any big company's annual review of expenses. Big companies do it all the time.