Online Fashion Retailer Zalando Cuts Hundreds of Jobs — Retail Bum

German fashion retailer Zalando is set to cut hundreds of jobs across the company.

The decision comes as the company is struggling to cope with the impact of the ongoing macroeconomic challenges, which are resulting in a slowdown in sales.

The company’s current state of affairs is remarkably different from 2021 and 2022, when a pandemic-fueled surge in consumer demand led it to over-hire across various business functions.

“We have decided to start a program that will remove several hundred overhead roles across many of our teams,” the company said in a statement.

“Over the last few years, some parts of our company have expanded too much, and we have added a degree of complexity to our organization that impacted our ability to act fast.”

Zalando currently employs over 17,000 employees and operates in 25 European counties. While exact details of the layoffs are still being worked out, the company noted that various parts of the organization would be impacted, including senior leadership. Unaffected organizations, however, would include frontline operations roles in logistics centers, customer care, outlet stores, and operational roles in Zalando Studios.

Zalando needs to be “a big company with a small company structure and mindset,” said David Schneider and Robert Gentz, Zalando’s co-chief executives. “It needs to be one that “embraces simplicity, pragmatism, and frugality.”

Originally published at https://retailbum.com on February 22, 2023.