Adidas, Nike and Puma were among the companies that cut jobs in 2025.
Adidas, Nike and Puma were among the companies that cut jobs in 2025. Courtesy Images
This year’s job market has taken a hit across industries, as higher retail costs led to weaker consumer demand and concerns continued to mount over how artificial intelligence will affect future job creation.
Looking closer at the U.S. Department of Labor’s most recent jobs report in November, the overall economy created 64,000 jobs last month, while unemployment rose to 4.6 percent its highest level since September 2021.
As for footwear, some companies were not so fortunate this year, having to resort to saving their bottom lines by cutting staff. As FN looks back on the year, here are the seven biggest footwear
layoffs of 2025.
Puma Eliminates 900 Positions After Q3 Results
Puma said in October that it is planning to reduce its “white collar” workforce by 900 positions as part of its third quarter earnings release.
The reduction comes on top of 500 jobs cut in March and means the company will have slashed around 20 percent of its corporate workforce this year.
The cuts come as the German activewear firm blamed a strategic “reset” as it navigates “several company-specific challenges, including muted brand momentum, elevated inventory levels across the trade and low quality of distribution.”
Measures taken so far, including stock take backs and reduced promotional activity, impacted
Puma’s performance in the third quarter, both at wholesale and in its own stores and online sales, the company explained.
Nike Makes a New Round of Corporate
Layoffs
In August,
Nike disclosed a new round of layoffs, this time impacting its corporate team.
The move comes after president and chief executive officer Elliott Hill raised the possibility of layoffs in June during
Nike’s earnings report for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025.
Nike told Footwear News that 1 percent of its corporate employees will be let go. An email from the company’s leadership team informed employees of the realignment.
“Change can be difficult. It can also be what sharpens the edge, aligns the team and sets up the win,” the email, signed by Hill and members of the senior leadership team, said. “And the ‘W’ is ours to take, embracing an athlete mindset that leads with passion, commitment and determination.”
Vans Owner VF Corp. Has Rounds of Cuts
In May, a VF Corp. representative affirmed the news that the company has made further job cuts. “Over the past few months, VF has been working to reorganize select commercial functions globally, as part of the company’s ongoing business turnaround,” the rep’s statement said.
The rep also noted that the reorganization has impacted approximately 400 employees globally, across VF’s brands and throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia regions.
The round of layoffs in May come a few months after VF announced further job cuts in new “reorganization” efforts back in January. At the time, the company did not confirm the total number of employees that were affected.
Adidas CEO Confirms Company Will Cut 500 ‘Obsolete’ Jobs
Adidas chief executive officer
Bjørn Gulden confirmed in March that the sports company will eliminate 500 roles.
On the company’s fourth quarter earnings call with analysts, Gulden said that these roles are “obsolete” after undergoing a strategic review to simplify operations at
Adidas’ Herzogenaurach, Germany, headquarters. Adidas has around 62,000 employees around the globe, Gulden noted on the call.
This confirmation comes after an Adidas representative told FN in January that Adidas was looking into cutting jobs. The rep told FN that these cuts were are not part of a cost savings program but instead are aimed at “reducing complexity and ensure sustainable success in the future.”
Clarks Sheds Over 1,200 Jobs
In July,
Clarks revealed in a Companies House filing that it reduced its workforce by over 1,200 employees in fiscal 2024.
The filing noted that it ended fiscal 2024 with 6,161 employees, down from 7,413 in fiscal 2023. It also stated that approximately 220 of those eliminated roles were global corporate positions.
In a statement sent to FN in July, a Clarks representative said that 2024 was “a year of challenging market conditions which had an impact on global performance.”
UK Footwear Retailer Schuh Makes Cuts
In January, Schuh managing director Colin Temple said in a statement that the UK-based footwear retailer would implement a new round of layoffs.
“At Schuh, our people have and always will be our most important asset,” Temple said in a statement sent to FN at the time. “Due to ongoing challenging economic conditions and rising costs, we have made the difficult decision to restructure our business. We are going through a voluntary redundancy process in some areas of business.”
While the exact number of employees affected by these cuts are unknown, Temple added that he will not be commenting any further “in the interest of respecting our employees during this time.”
REI Co-op Shutters Its Experiences Business After Nearly 40 Years
After nearly 40 years, REI Co-op shuttered its Experiences adventure travel business in January. With this move, 428 employees — including 180 people in full-time roles and 248 part-time guides — will be laid off.
“We have gone through many iterations and have explored multiple options to keep this business up and running to preserve jobs. We’ve held out as long as possible, but the fact remains that Experiences is an unprofitable business for the co-op, and we must adjust course,” REI chief executive officer Eric Artz said in a note to employees that was shared with FN.
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