No one is safe from the multinational corporations’ scissors. Technological transitions and high costs have led to the disappearance of thousands of jobs at companies like Spotify, Microsoft, or Amazon. Now, the iconic toy company Hasbro joins this sad trend with the recent layoff of thousands of its employees.
In January 2023, Hasbro unveiled a workforce reduction plan, announcing the elimination of 1,000 positions. However, it seems these measures haven’t been sufficient. Now, Chris Cocks (CEO of Hasbro) has explained in a statement that they will lay off an additional 1,100 employees. The layoffs will begin in the coming weeks and will be carried out gradually over the next six months.
Hasbro, primarily known for its toys and for hosting major brands like Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, had 6,300 employees before the layoffs. With this adjustment, the company will see its workforce reduced by approximately 29%.
This adjustment comes after Hasbro had limited its revenue forecasts for the entire year back in October, just before Christmas. Despite this usually being one of the most fruitful periods for toy manufacturers, Gina Goetter (Hasbro’s CFO) had already warned during the earnings conference that the company was experiencing a “widespread decline in the Toys category.”
In the statement issued by Hasbro, Cocks explains that they anticipated “the first three quarters to be challenging,” especially “in Toys, where the market is coming off the historic highs reached during the pandemic […] Although we’ve made significant progress throughout our organization, the headwinds we faced during the first nine months of the year have persisted and are likely to continue into 2024.”
Of the 1,000 layoffs announced in January, 800 positions were ultimately eliminated. If we add these to the current cut of 1,100, Hasbro would have let go of approximately 1,900 employees during 2023.
