German online fashion retailer Zalando today said it was cutting hundreds of jobs across its workforce of 17,000, saying it had expanded too much and citing a difficult economic environment since the coronavirus pandemic.
"We have decided to start a programme that will remove several hundred overhead roles across many of our teams," it said in a statement.
"Over the last few years, some parts of our company have expanded too much and we have added a degree of complexity to our organization that impacted our ability to act fast," it added.
Zalando has about 120 employees in Ireland.
A company spokesperson said it was too early to say how many employees in each country will be affected by the cuts announced today.
The planned job cuts were first reported in the Financial Times, which said the online retailer's workforce would shrink by up to 5%.
In its last quarterly earnings report in November, Zalando said it expected full-year revenues and operating profit to reach the lower end of its target range, citing sluggish consumer sentiment and high inflation.
In today's statement, Zalando said that while the pandemic had boosted business in 2020 and 2021, "the pandemic tailwinds have faded since 2022 and the macroeconomic environment has become more challenging."
