L.L. Bean‘s latest announcement shows that in an uncertain retail environment, even legacy brands can get left out in the cold.
The outdoor retailer is cutting between 50 and 75 jobs from its Freeport, Maine, workforce, according to a statement from the company. That amounts to 2 to 3 percent of its Maine-based staff.
“As the company continues to evaluate the fluctuating retail landscape and adapt our organizational design to enable long-term growth, we will implement a small, focused workforce reduction to better align resources with company goals and objectives,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Some departures will be voluntary and impacted employees will be provided severance packages and outplacements services.”
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Earlier this year, the company laid off an undisclosed number of employees from its customer call center, citing a need for fewer hours of operation due to the continual rise of e-commerce.
“As more of our customers choose self-service and shop through our digital and retail channels, customer contacts have declined over the last four years,” the company wrote in an internal message in April, noting that consumers place “nearly 90 percent” of their direct channel orders on the company’s website and that “over 90 percent” of its inbound customer inquiries come in between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET.
At the time, the company noted that the customer call center layoffs could be considered “a strategic response to long-term customer trends,” rather than a plan for larger cuts.
Now, several months later, it has elected to eliminate more jobs. The company did not disclose the type of job functions it plans to eliminate this time around, but the spokesperson said the company will work to support those impacted by the layoffs.
“Workforce reductions are always difficult and never a decision we make lightly. We are committed to supporting those impacted with empathy, respect and care just as we are committed to sustainable growth and building a strong future for our stakeholders,” the spokesperson said.
The outdoor retailer’s announcement comes just a few days after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that while most industries’ job numbers either increased or remained flat, retail saw a decline in jobs in November.
“Employment trended up in health care, leisure and hospitality, government and social assistance. Retail trade lost jobs,” the BLS noted.
More specifically, though November saw 227,000 jobs added to the at-large U.S. economy, retail shed 28,000 jobs, which could be indicative of a difficult employment environment in the industry. In October, retail’s job count declined by about 3,700, according to BLS data.
Retail’s woes last month aren’t isolated to 2024; in 2023, the number of retail jobs declined by 42,900 in November. Still, the outlook appears worse than last year for jobseekers reliant on a new role in retail.
The BLS’s new data shows that retail and wholesale has the highest unemployment rate recorded for any industry in November. Last month, the unemployment rate stood at 4 percent total, with retail coming in at 4.8 percent, up from last November’s figure of 3.6 percent.
