Target staff prepare for more layoffs amid store closures: ‘We're prepping resumes’
Target workers are anxious about job security and heavy workloads following disappointing earnings. Sales fell to $23.85 billion।
Target workers across the country are spending their nights fretting over their job security, heavy workloads, and potential store closures.
“We are cooked,” one Target worker wrote on Reddit. “Ummm..... Team are we cooked?” another Redditor asked, while sharing screenshots of media coverage of the retail giants' growing struggle.
“So those of you who have been around at Target for many years- what can we look forward to in the coming months? Radical corporate strategy change? Continuation of the same failing processes? What are we going to see at a store level?”
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“Almost certainly they will continue running the store on a skeleton crew, even more so while sales and foot traffic are slow,” another piped in.
One worker even suggested, “All we can do is ride it out and hope for the best. If it comes down to it, prepare a resume just in case”
Another said, “We're prepping resumes.”
Target is struggling, problems are exxcalating
The anxiety follows Target’s disappointing quarterly earnings report, which missed Wall Street expectations by a wide margin. Sales dipped to $23.85 billion, down 2.8% from the previous quarter and short of the predicted $24.23 billion. Shares have dropped over 31% this year.
“I want to be clear, we’re not satisfied with these results, so we’re moving with urgency to navigate through this period of volatility,” CEO Brian Cornell said. “We’ve got to drive traffic back into our stores or visits to our site.”
The company has even introduced 10,000 new items, and most of them are priced under US$20, with the lowest at US$1 to battle challenges affecting consumer spending.
Neil Saunders, a retail expert at GlobalData told the Daily Mail, “Target has found itself in a challenging position… The business is not terrible, but it is under pressure and that is causing nervousness among associates.”
Though Target still posted a profit of $5 billion last year, the company is cutting back, slowing store remodels, and lowering its outlook for 2025.
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“Underlying profit at Target is squeezed and that makes it more likely the company will be cautious in hiring and tight in the labor hours it allocates,” Saunders added.
“That makes staff worry for their own jobs. All of this is exacerbated because communication from management has, generally, been poor.”
