Nike To Cut 400 Employees In China

According to reports in foreign media, Nike started a new round of layoff and 400 employees in China may lose their jobs during the process.

A layoff plan announced by Nike in July 2020 showed that the total cost of laying off employees can reach up to USD250 million. As of May, Nike had 75,000 employees worldwide, which were 1,600 less than the same period last year.

Latest information shows that Nike's headquarters in Oregon will permanently cut about 700 employees, and Nike China plans to cut about 400 employees, accounting for 20% of its total employees. The layoff will mainly affect the Beijing and Guangzhou regional offices.

In July 2020, John Donahoe, CEO of Nike, said in an email that the main reason for the global layoff was that Nike continued to implement "Consumer Direct Acceleration". By enhancing digital business, Nike will shift its sales focus to the online platform, thus reducing the number of employees in physical stores.

Donahoe previously said that to ease the impact of the epidemic lockdown on offline sales, Nike's new goal is to increase the proportion of digital business sales to 30% by 2023.

During the fiscal year 2020, the Chinese market saw a revenue growth of 6%, and the digital transformation strategy directly promoted the strong rebound of Nike.

The company's financial report for the first quarter of 2021 released in September showed that its profit increased to USD1.5 billion, and its online sales surged 82% during the reporting period, helping the company offset the decline in its offline retail business and specialty stores.