Beauty startup Glossier lays off a third of its corporate staff

Emily Weiss, the CEO and founder of Glossier, a beauty startup said in an email to its employees that one-third of their corporate staff has been laid off. Glossier has branded itself as a beauty and technology company. However, more than the 80 corporate employees laid off, the technology team was affected the most. Weiss wrote that some of its technology work will be outsourced. 

In the email that was sent to employees on Wednesday, Weiss says, "Over the past two years, we prioritized certain strategic projects that distracted us from the laser-focus we needed to have on our core business: scaling our beauty brand." She added, "We also got ahead of ourselves on hiring. These missteps are on me." 

These job cuts come after Glossier made big moves in to trim its brick-and-mortar footprint in August 2020. The company laid off retail workers and closed stores in New York, Los Angeles and London. The reason cited was the pandemic but they also mentioned that Glossier was a "digital first" company. The layoffs this week might have leaned too heavily into that "digital first" narrative. 

Source: CNN