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As the shape of the beauty landscape around the world changes – Amazon ascendant, China slowing, TikTok taking over and new consumers emerging – the beauty job market is changing accordingly.
Established and emerging companies are reconfiguring their workforces to better meet the demands of these rapidly changing times, whether they are reshaping certain departments, opting for greater agility with a fractional model or to restructure.
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“The bottom line is simplified to increase,” said Oliver Chen, an analyst at TD Cowen. “Part of that is managing it for speed and agility.”
For many larger players, this changing landscape has meant some restructuring, with some areas of the business laying off even as others are being improved.
“The intent is to maximize profitability, given the slowdown in China, and even a little bit of the overall slowdown in this market as well,” said Cassie Cowman, co-founder of View From 32, a beauty consultancy that works with both founders and investors. .
“Companies are figuring out how to structure these teams to maximize that,” she said. “I have some clients who are still seeing decent traffic, for example, but the conversion is very low or maybe the dot-com channel is suffering. So how are they investing more in the brick and mortar business to maximize that channel when it’s seeing strong momentum?”
Unilever unveiled a “comprehensive productivity program,” involving 7,500 office-based layoffs worldwide to achieve total cost savings of approximately 800 million euros over the next three years. British media outlets have reported that part of the plan is to cut a third of office roles in Europe by the end of 2025, or around 3,200 roles.
In February, the Estée Lauder Cos unveiled a restructuring plan, including layoffs, as it continues to flounder amid struggles in Asia and at home. It is part of the wider Recovery and Profit Growth Plan, designed to make the company more agile. Clinique owner Mac, Tom Ford and others will cut its global workforce of 62,000 by between 3 and 5 percent as part of the plan, equivalent to up to 3,100 jobs. This will be done over the next two and a half years.
That same month, Shiseido introduced a new business plan in which it is offering an early retirement plan to about 1,500 employees in Japan to help strengthen the group’s growth and profitability. The move is part of an overarching vision. “To achieve sustainable growth, Shiseido Japan will focus its activities on brands, products and touchpoints with high growth potential and profitability, thereby strengthening brand and touchpoint strategy,” the company said.
Dyson is also cutting around 1,000 jobs in the UK, around a third of its UK workforce, due to what the company describes as “fierce” global competition.
At L’Oréal US, WWD understands that there has been some restructuring in the consumer products division, which has resulted in the loss of around 40 jobs. These are all shopper roles, the link between the marketing and sales teams. Sales leads for brands are also being transferred to retail leads.
In a WARN notice filed in New York last month, the No7 Beauty company said the office closing would affect 64 workers at its Manhattan office. “To enhance our ability to invest in the growth of the No7 Beauty Company in the US, we are restructuring our organization to work more closely within our own retail partners,” a spokesperson said. “Moving forward, we will no longer be occupying a small number of desks in shared office space in New York, and most of our staff are being relocated.” Its parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance has made several rounds of layoffs.
Recently, LVMH-owned Sephora announced plans to cut its workforce in China by 3 percent, equivalent to about 120 roles, “in response to the challenging market environment” there.
As for the roles companies are hiring for, Lisa Mare Ringus, executive vice president of global client strategy and growth at 24 Seven Inc, noted interest in specific sales roles such as Amazon support, social and content, finance and marketing.
“We’ve seen more financial employees this year than ever before within beauty,” Ringus said.
Others have seen a spike in searches for chief brand merchandising officers, as well as chief sales officers and chief commercial officers, sometimes also called chief revenue officers.
And of course, those who know about AI and TikTok are more in demand.
“It’s also because of the new skill set,” Chen said. “When you hire someone they will be much better at AI and will use TikTok regularly. You need new people who can recruit new customers.”
In addition to the strategic strategies, the MLM market is also changing, resulting in job losses. Rodan + Fields has unveiled a new business model, cutting around 100 roles.
Beginning September 1, the company transitioned from a multi-level direct sales model to a new affiliate program, which will be supported by a wider range of marketing and advertising across traditional channels and social media.
Struggling Beautycounter has also cut jobs, but at this time, it is not known how many staff members have been affected. Its two stand-alone stores in New York and Denver will be closed as it evaluates its retail strategy.
But while some companies are restructuring, some smaller brands are rethinking the way they approach C-suite hiring.
Take skincare brand Eighth Day, which is backed by L Catterton. CEO Savannah Sachs is implementing some fractional C-suite roles for multiple reasons.
“There has been an interesting evolution of the idea of freelance or part-time talent, especially at the executive level. The change is simply a rebrand from consulting to fractional. It shows how that kind of part-time leadership role has evolved to become more influential,” she said.
“Rather than consulting where it’s implied that you’re working on the business, but you’re not in the business, a fractional leadership role is one where they’re helping to set strategy and helping to execute on a much more integrated way with the existing team, so it has more impact. It feels more committed,” she continued. “But at the same time, the brand or the earlier-stage startup can compete with the level of senior talent they can bring in and bring in, and it also enables the executive to see some things. various businesses.”
Cowman is seeing this too. “I’m also advising some of my brand clients to do that. It’s always really beneficial when these young brands can bring in top-level talent early on.”
From an executive perspective, Ringus said more beauty executives are currently unemployed than in recent years amid fewer jobs available and increased competition for those roles.
“It’s very difficult if you’re trying to get a job and you’re over $400,000/$500,000,” she said. “It’s a combination of the availability of talent, and then their willingness to look at other opportunities, and then the demand for some of these small and medium-sized brands, to bring in expertise that they need and the bench of talent that they need on them, but they are often not ready to make that hiring commitment at those salary levels.”
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