Layoffs Continue at Coach, Kate Spade Fashion House
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Tapestry Inc. continues to downsize its global workforce.
“In keeping with the plans shared in our third-quarter earnings communications on April 30, we have taken additional actions to streamline our organization, including significant reductions in our global corporate and retail workforce during May and June,” a representative from the company said in an e-mail Monday. “These actions position Tapestry to emerge as a global, consumer-centric company, with a more agile organizational structure. Being more responsive to the rapidly changing retail environment is a key enabler of Tapestry’s multi-year strategic growth plan.”
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Like most retailers in the era of the coronavirus, Tapestry took a severe hit with store closures last quarter — the company lost $677 million between January and March — and was forced to make changes in an effort to mitigate losses.
One of them was trimming its employee headcount. In April — pre-quarterly earnings release — Tapestry, parent company to Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman, laid off about 2,100 workers part-time store associates across all three brands. Each associate impacted received a one-time payment of $1,000 to help ease the financial burden.
During the April 30 conference call with analysts, the company said it would be taking further actions across the global organization during the current quarter, which ends in June, to curb losses.
Then in May, Jide Zeitlin, chairman and chief executive officer of Tapestry, told WWD that the remaining majority of Tapestry’s North American workforce would continue to receive regular compensation through May 30, but in-store employees would likely be furloughed after that.
(As of May 15, the retailer opened about 50 percent of its directly operated global store fleet, including more than 300 locations in the U.S. for curbside pickup.)
“There’s been a whole host of different steps [Tapestry has taken],” Zeitlin said in May. “Whether you go back to the beginning of this challenging environment and the steps that we took early and quickly to fortify our financial position, we think this is all a part of that narrative.”
The company would not confirm any singular layoff dates or the number of associates laid off.
Tapestry stock, which was trading up nearly 2 percent during Monday’s session, is down more than 56 percent year-over-year.
