Fifteen months after cutting 300 jobs across its global workforce, VF Corp., parent of Vans, The North Face, Dickies, Timberland, Smartwool, Jansport, and other active lifestyle brands, is at it again confirming Wednesday that it will eliminate another 500 jobs this week. 

“As part of VF’s new Reinvent strategy and with the aim of improving operational efficiency, we have eliminated approximately 500 salaried positions across the company globally,” the company said in an email to SGB Media on Wednesday. “While these decisions are never easy, they will give us the financial flexibility to invest behind our brands and better position us for long-term growth. We’re committed to handling this restructuring with dignity and respect for all involved and want to thank those impacted for their valued contributions to VF.”

VF Corp. told SGB Media that the layoffs include 30 employees from its Denver headquarters. Many expect the brunt of the downsizing to come at California-based Vans, which has been the biggest drag on the company for the last two years and continued the trend in the fiscal Q2 period, with sales falling over 20 percent year-over-year.

The Reinvent transformation plan covers four key priorities for VF Corp.:

  • Improve North America results,
  • Deliver Van’s turnaround,
  • Reduce costs, and
  • Strengthen the company’s balance sheet.

VF vowed to implement a large-scale cost reduction program, which it expects will deliver $300 million in fixed cost savings by removing spending in non-strategic areas, simplifying and right-sizing its structure.

“Despite pockets of continued strong performance throughout the first half and solid profit margins in the second quarter, it’s not enough, and we are not making sufficient progress at Vans or in the U.S.,” said company CFO Matt Puckett in an October release. “Our transformation plan, Reinvent, directly addresses these areas in particular and, importantly, commits to lowering our cost structure by $300 million.”

Social media was full of staff commentary as employees were put on notice about the job losses. One post on TheLayoff.com suggested the entire internal creative team aside from four people were cut yesterday. Another poster claimed they had just been hired and were planning to start next week, but got a call the previous day that the role had been cancelled. The posts came from people from across the VF brand spectrum, from TNF and Vans to Timberland.

In August 2022, reports arrived that VF had eliminated 600 office-based roles, split evenly between 300 current employees laid off and 300 open job listings eliminated.

Photo courtesy VF Corp.