Glossier to lay off a third of its corporate staff

Beauty startup Glossier has laid off a third of its corporate staff, founder and CEO Emily Weiss said in an email to employees.

Glossier has branded itself as both a technology and beauty company — but of the more than 80 corporate employees laid off, the tech team was affected the most. Some of its technology work will now be outsourced, Weiss wrote.

“Over the past two years, we prioritized certain strategic projects that distracted us from the laser-focus we needed to have on our core business: scaling our beauty brand,” Weiss said in the email on Wednesday. “We also got ahead of ourselves on hiring. These missteps are on me.”

The job cuts come after Glossier made big moves to trim its brick-and-mortar footprint in August 2020: It laid off retail workers and closed stores in New York, Los Angeles and London. The company cited the pandemic, but it also stated it was a “digital first” company.