Nike announced Thursday that it will cut approximately 1,400 positions across its global operations, the latest round of layoffs at a company that has shed more than 2,000 jobs this year alone and lost roughly 75 percent of its market value since 2021.
Chief Operating Officer Venkatesh Alagirisamy broke the news in an internal memo to employees, framing the cuts as part of Nike's broader "Win Now" turnaround strategy. Affected workers span North America, Asia, and Europe, and notifications were set to begin Thursday.
The scale of the damage is hard to overstate. A company once valued among the most powerful consumer brands on Earth is now worth about $70 billion, roughly a third of the value of TJ Maxx, the Daily Mail reported. Nike shares hit an 11-year low on April 13, and while the stock has recovered slightly in recent days, the trajectory tells a grim story.
Alagirisamy's memo laid out the operational changes driving the cuts. The technology team will be reshaped. Elements of Nike's Air manufacturing line will be modernized. Parts of Converse footwear operations will be relocated. And the materials supply chain will be folded into broader footwear and apparel divisions.
In his own words to employees, Alagirisamy acknowledged the human cost:
"Collectively, these changes will result in a reduction of approximately 1,400 roles in global operations, with the majority in technology. These reductions are very hard for the teammates directly affected and for the teams around them, too."
He also sought to reassure the workforce that leadership isn't making this up as it goes. "This is not a new direction," he wrote. "It is the next phase of the work already underway."
Nike told reporters the layoffs account for less than 2 percent of its global workforce, a figure Newsmax also confirmed, noting the cuts are aimed at boosting profits as Nike struggles with weaker performance and rising competition.
CEO Elliott Hill struck a notably blunt tone in a recording from a recent all-hands meeting that leaked to Bloomberg News. The comments offered a rare window into the frustration at the top of the company.
Hill told staff:
"I'm so tired, and I know you are, too, of talking about fixing this business. I want to move to inspiring and driving growth and having fun."
He didn't sugarcoat the situation. "You can't just sit there and say everything's great," Hill said. "Frankly it needed to be different."
That kind of candor from a Fortune 500 CEO is unusual. Whether it signals genuine urgency or merely corporate frustration dressed up for the rank and file remains to be seen. But the numbers behind Hill's exasperation are real.
These 1,400 cuts follow 775 roles Nike axed back in January. Combined, the company has eliminated more than 2,000 positions in a matter of months. The January layoffs, which focused on advancing automation in U.S. facilities, signaled that the Beaverton giant was willing to trade headcount for efficiency. Thursday's announcement confirms the pattern is accelerating, not stabilizing.
Nike's share price peaked in 2021. Since then, the company has watched three-quarters of its market capitalization evaporate. A deepening slump in China, intensifying competition from rivals, and what amounts to years of strategic drift have all contributed to the decline.
The comparison to TJ Maxx is the kind of stat that should make Nike's board lose sleep. A discount retailer now commands triple the market value of a brand that once defined global athletic culture. That gap didn't appear overnight. It grew while Nike's leadership was busy with other priorities.
Nike is far from the only household-name brand trimming its workforce. Target recently announced layoffs alongside a store investment strategy, reshaping its operations even as it pours money into physical retail.
The majority of Nike's latest cuts will fall on technology workers, a detail that stands out. For years, corporate America poured money into tech hiring, building bloated digital teams on the assumption that growth would never slow. Now, from Nike to Amazon, the correction is underway.
Amazon set plans to cut thousands of corporate jobs in its own efficiency push. The common thread is clear: companies that hired aggressively during the pandemic boom are now reckoning with the bill.
Alagirisamy's memo detailed specific structural moves, reshaping the tech team, modernizing Air manufacturing, relocating Converse operations, consolidating the materials supply chain. Each line item reads like an admission that the existing structure wasn't working. The question is whether these moves represent genuine strategic clarity or just cost-cutting dressed up in corporate language.
Several questions remain unanswered. Nike has not disclosed how many of the 1,400 cuts fall specifically within technology versus other functions. The company has not named the specific offices or countries most affected beyond the broad regional categories of North America, Asia, and Europe.
The exact date of Alagirisamy's memo has not been made public. Nor has Nike clarified the precise timing of Hill's all-hands meeting, though a Bloomberg report referenced in connection with the leak carries an April 1 date in its URL.
Even the broader retail landscape offers little comfort. Home Depot announced layoffs and a full-time office return for staff as part of its own operational rethink, another sign that consumer-facing companies across the board are tightening up.
Nike's decline did not happen in a vacuum. The brand that once stood for athletic excellence spent years chasing cultural positioning over product dominance. It embraced political activist Colin Kaepernick as a face of the brand after his national anthem protests. It leaned into celebrity partnerships and fashion campaigns. Whether those choices alienated core customers or simply distracted leadership from the competitive fundamentals, the market has rendered its verdict.
A 75 percent decline in market value is not a branding hiccup. It is a structural failure. And the 1,400 workers losing their jobs Thursday are the ones paying for it, not the executives who steered the ship into these waters.
Hill says he wants to stop talking about fixing the business and start driving growth. Fair enough. But the workers getting notified Thursday don't have the luxury of pivoting to "having fun." They're looking for new jobs in a labor market that isn't exactly rolling out the welcome mat for displaced tech workers at a struggling sneaker company.
Nike insists this is "the next phase of the work already underway." For the 2,000-plus employees who have lost their positions this year, the work is already done, and it wasn't the kind anyone signed up for.
When a company worth a third of TJ Maxx tells its workforce the layoffs are all part of the plan, somebody ought to ask who drew up the plan in the first place.