Glossier lays off one-third of corporate employees as it loses grip

New-York based beauty company Glossier on 26 January laid off one-third of its corporate employees. CEO Emily Weiss said the company “made some mistakes", which led to the decision to dismiss over 80 workers.  

The company called it a “difficult but necessary decision”, adding that “these changes leave us in a good position as we continue to grow the brand long into the future”.

Weiss said in a letter to employees that the company got ahead of itself on hiring. Weiss also stated that “these pitfalls are on me”. “We prioritised certain strategic projects that distracted us from the laser-focus we needed to have on our core business: scaling our beauty brand,” Weiss elaborated.

Although Glossier has branded itself as both a technology and beauty company, its tech team is impacted the most by the layoffs. As a result, according to Weiss, some of its technology work will be outsourced. “We are shifting our technology strategy to leverage external partners for parts of our platform that we’re currently maintaining internally,” she wrote.

Glossier had difficult years due to the pandemic. In August 2020, it laid off all of its retail employees and shuttered its stores, getting back into physical retail a year later. Last July, the company managed to raise $80 million and is valued at $1.8 billion. 

The buzzy beauty brand started off as beauty blog Into The Gloss in 2010. Weiss then decided to expand the business by tapping into beauty brand in 2014. Glossier focuses on their content and community as their digital strategy, claiming that they are “born from content, fueled by community"