BOSTON – Wayfair announced major layoffs on Friday affecting about 10% of its global workforce. The online retailer is cutting 1,750 jobs, most at the corporate level. It was not immediately clear how many workers would be affected at the company’s headquarters in Boston.
This is the second big layoff announcement from Wayfair in less than a year. In August, the company laid off 5% of employees globally, including 400 in Boston. Like many tech and e-commerce companies, Wayfair has struggled to retain its customer base after a spike in business when the COVID pandemic started. CEO Niraj Shah says the company “simply grew too big.”
“In hindsight, similar to our technology peers, we scaled our spend too quickly over the last few years,” Shah said in a statement. “The good news for Wayfair is that we have operated in a highly productive and efficient way for the vast majority of our 20 year history, and we are now simply returning to that.”
