{"id":28617,"date":"2023-02-15T03:00:35","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.workingteddy.com\/?p=28617"},"modified":"2023-02-15T03:00:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T08:00:35","slug":"neiman-marcus-to-lay-off-about-5-of-workforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/neiman-marcus-to-lay-off-about-5-of-workforce\/","title":{"rendered":"Neiman Marcus to Lay Off About 5% of Workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neiman Marcus Group<\/strong><\/span> said on Tuesday it would lay off about 5% of its workforce, or around 500 employees, as the luxury department store chain looks to cut costs in a tough economy.<\/p>\n

The Dallas-based luxury icon, which also owns Bergdorf Goodman, is preparing to distribute pink slips this week to nearly 500 of Neiman\u2019s employees across the entire organization including merchandising, supply chain, technology and retail \u2014 and severance packages are expected to be skimpy, sources told The Post.<\/p>\n

The company joins<\/strong> <\/span>a growing list of firms in corporate America – from Wall Street banks and tech companies to online furniture retailer Wayfair Inc – that have reduced their workforce amid worries of an economic downturn.<\/p>\n

The company also said its Chief Product & Technology Officer Bob Kupbens will depart, while said Ryan Ross, president, Neiman Marcus, will lead customer insights for the group.<\/p>\n

Darcy Penick, the president of luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman, will assume group-level leadership of the NMG Product & Technology organization.<\/p>\n

Neiman Marcus Group has more than 10,000 employees as per its website.<\/p>\n

job cuts are \u201cdue to our failure to hit the sales plan we submitted<\/strong><\/span>,\u201d one insider said. \u201cBusiness is soft<\/strong><\/span>, not so terrible, but behind the growth we projected.\u201d<\/p>\n

The source predicted that Neiman will describe the layoffs as \u201cthe next step in our journey,\u201d but added that \u201cthis is really a result of poor financial planning and an unwillingness to budge from that error.\u201d<\/p>\n

After The Post contacted Neiman about the cuts early Tuesday afternoon, the company released a statement confirming the bloodbath, saying \u201ccertain positions representing less than 5% of the workforce will be eliminated across the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

The looming carnage is a far cry from the previous two years, when Chief Executive Geoffroy van Raemdonck distributed fat bonuses to himself and other brass after the company emerged from bankruptcy in September 2020. The payouts \u2014 which van Raemdonck boasted were the biggest at Neiman in at least 30 years \u2014 were doled out in October, following a similar bonanza in 2021, insiders told The Post.<\/p>\n

Van Raemdonck had previously come under fire as he reaped about $10 million in bonuses for himself during the height of the pandemic, as well as perks including an unusually generous health benefit plan. The payouts came even as employees faced pay cuts and layoffs, as The Post exclusively reported. Neiman Marcus Group employs about 10,000 workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could the last two years be a max bonus payout<\/strong><\/span>?,\u201d one executive who received a fat bonus wrote last year on EthicsPoint, a private platform employers provide for employees to air grievances anonymously. \u201cWere they purposefully set to be easy to accomplish?\u201d according to the report, which was viewed by The Post.<\/p>\n

When setting bonus benchmarks, experts say it\u2019s not unusual for a company to set less aggressive hurdles on the heels of a bankruptcy filing. But \u201ctwo years in a row of max bonus means the company should be growing in leaps and bounds,\u201d said a compensation expert familiar with Neiman Marcus who asked not to be identified.<\/p>\n

With its well-heeled clientele spending freely amid a post-pandemic luxury boom, the past two years\u2019 bonuses ranged from thousands for salaried employees to millions for some C-suite executives, according to sources close to the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are building a business to move forward, but paying like we are on top of the world. But we\u2019re not,\u201d the employee added on EthicsPoint, saying he or she planned to donate 15% of the bonus to charity. \u201cI feel the amount of money we were all given was too much for the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neiman Marcus reassured the employee, according to the EthicsPoint report, that the company\u2019s financial projections for bonuses are set by the board of directors and an independent compensation consultant.<\/p>\n

Executives at the vice president level will be offered severance packages of approximately six months but if they land another job before then they are not entitled to future payments, sources tell The Post. One employee called the severance conditions \u201charsh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is language in the agreements that if they fail to notify Neiman Marcus [of their new job] the company has the right to come after them for the payment,\u201d a person with knowledge of the agreement said.<\/p>\n

Such clawbacks are unusual in retail layoffs and most other industries, a compensation expert told The Post. \u201cIt\u2019s usually used in the sports world when million of dollars are in play and there\u2019s been a signed contract but the person has been terminated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neiman Marcus\u2019 fortunes<\/strong><\/span> are largely tied to the big oil companies, which have raked in massive profits this year \u2013 seven of Neiman Marcus\u2019 36 stores are in Texas \u2013 and to a small group of loyal, millionaire customers. For much of the pandemic, these customers were impervious to job layoffs and financial hardships. But in recent months, even the super wealthy are pulling back amidst economic uncertainty.<\/p>\n

In January, reports emerged that Saks.com would be laying off about 100 employees, largely in its technology division, or about 3.5% of its workforce.<\/p>\n

In October, van Raemdonck boasted of the company\u2019s \u201cstrong performance\u201d in 2022. Neiman Marcus generated 30% growth in comparable sales for the fiscal year ended in July, he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last year, Farfetch Ltd, an online retailer of luxury fashion products, had said it would make an investment<\/strong><\/span> of up to $200 million in Neiman, gaining a stronger foothold in the United States as part of a deal to develop the high-end department store’s online business.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neiman Marcus Group said on Tuesday it would lay off about 5% of its workforce, or around 500 employees, as the luxury department store chain looks to cut costs in a tough economy. The Dallas-based luxury icon, which also owns Bergdorf Goodman, is preparing to distribute pink slips this week to nearly 500 of Neiman\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3684,3696,3712,3699,3700,3692],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-business","category-employment","category-finance","category-financial","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}