Lands'​ End reduces corporate workforce by 10 percent

Lifestyle retailer Lands’ End has laid off 10 percent of its corporate employees.

Chief financial officer Bernie McCracken revealed during the retailer’s fourth-quarter earning calls last Wednesday that the company had “executed a high single-digit percent reduction in corporate headcount in January.”

"We determined that creating a flatter, more agile organization would set us up to continue to profitably grow over the long term while generating additional cost savings that can be reinvested in the business,” said Bernie McCracken during the call with Wall Street analysts.

The redundancies, together with previously announced changes to the company’s sourcing organization, represent a total of approximately 10 percent of its corporate staff. The layoffs come as Lands’ End struggled with increasing losses and declining sales during its fourth quarter. Net revenue fell nearly 3 percent year over year to 515 million USD from 530 million USD last year, as Lands’ End reported a quarterly net loss of 8.6 million USD.

Based in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, the change is said to underline a new direction for the Lands’ End team, changing how the retailer thinks about the skills, strategies, and requirements needed to grow its business in the future.

The layoffs come as Lands’ End opens its first-ever flagship store in Middleton, New Jersey. Representing the retailer’s dedication to the Madison area, Lands’ End CEO Andrew McLean officially opened the store on March 28 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

"We find Madison's a really important city to us. A lot of our staff and a lot of our community are here, and we wanted to be close to our community, so that's why we built the store here," said McLean to local 27News.