Wayfair to cut jobs

Wayfair Inc. is reducing its workforce in a reorganization.

The online home furnishings retailer will cut 550 jobs, with about 350 of the layoffs in its Boston headquarters, reported the Boston Globe. Wayfair currently has more than 17,000 employees worldwide. 

“To position the organization to take advantage of the opportunity ahead, we continually evaluate the needs of the business and work to increase efficiencies while aligning our teams with the initiatives that drive the greatest impact for our customers,” a Wayfair told Boston’s WBZ-TV. “As part of that process, we have made some organizational changes that affect approximately three percent of our global workforce.”

Wayfair has been on a hiring blitz for the past several years. It also has expanded into brick-and-mortar, opening its first permanent store in August. The company posted a wider-than-expected loss of $2.23 per share in the third quarter. Revenue rose 35.9% to $2.3 billion.

“On reflection this last period of investment went on too long . . . and we find ourselves at a place where we are, from an execution standpoint, investing in too many disparate areas, with an uneven quality and speed of execution,” Wayfair co-founder and CEO Niraj Shah stated in an e-mail to employees, as reported by the Globe. “Through two years of aggressive expansion, we no doubt built some excess, inefficiency, and even waste at times, in almost every area.”

The news about Wayfair’s job reductions came one day after Kohl’s announced it was eliminating 250 positions.