As the beauty landscape changes globally (Amazon rises, China declines, TikTok dominates, and new consumers emerge), the job market for beauty jobs is evolving along with it.
Both established and emerging companies are reorganizing their workforces to better meet the demands of these rapidly changing times. This can be done by reorganizing certain departments, opting for more flexibility with a fractional model or restructuring.
More from WWD"The core is simplify to strengthen," said Oliver Chen, an analyst at TD Cowen. "Part of that is managing for speed and agility."
For many larger players, this change will involve some form of restructuring, with layoffs taking place in certain parts of the business while other departments are being strengthened.
"The idea is to maximize profitability given the slowdown in China and even just a little bit of the overall slowdown in this market," 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 added. "I have some clients that are still seeing decent traffic, for example, but the conversion is very low or maybe the dotcom channel is struggling. So how do they invest more in the physical store to maximize that channel while it's still having strong momentum?"
Unilever has unveiled a "comprehensive productivity programme" that will see 7,500 office redundancies globally aimed at delivering total cost savings of around €800m over the next three years. British media have reported that as part of the redundancy plan, it plans to cut a third of all office roles in Europe by the end of 2025, or around 3,200 roles.
In February, The Estée Lauder Cos. unveiled a restructuring plan that included layoffs as the company continues to tread water amid troubles in Asia and at home. It's part of a broader Profit Recovery and Growth Plan designed to make the company more agile. The owner of Clinique, Mac, Tom Ford and others will cut its global workforce of 62,000 people by 3 percent to 5 percent as part of the plan, a reduction of as many as 3,100 jobs. It will be implemented over the next two and a half years.
That same month, Shiseido introduced a new corporate plan offering an early retirement plan to approximately 1,500 employees in Japan to boost the group's growth and profitability. The move is part of an overarching vision. "To achieve sustainable growth, Shiseido Japan will focus its business on brands, products and touchpoints with high growth potential and profitability, strengthening its brand and touchpoint strategy," the company said.
Dyson is also cutting about 1,000 jobs in the UK, around a third of its British workforce, due to what the company describes as "fierce" global competition.
At L'Oréal US, WWD understands there has been some restructuring in the consumer products division, resulting in the loss of approximately 40 jobs. These are omni-shopper roles, the link between the marketing and sales teams. Sales leads for brands are also being moved to retail leads.
In a WARN notice filed in New York last month, No7 Beauty Company said 64 employees in its Manhattan office would be affected by an office closure. "To increase our ability to invest in No7 Beauty Company's growth in the U.S., we are restructuring our organization to work more closely with our own retail partners," a spokesperson said. "Moving forward, we will no longer occupy a small number of desks in a shared office space in New York and most of our team members will be relocated." Parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance has conducted multiple rounds of layoffs.
Recently, Sephora, owned by LVMH, announced plans to cut its workforce in China by 3 percent, equivalent to about 120 jobs, "in response to challenging market conditions" there.
In terms of the roles companies are seeking, Lisa Mare Ringus, executive vice president of global client strategy and growth at 24 Seven Inc, noted that there is interest in specific sales roles, such as Amazon support, social media and content, finance and marketing.
"This year we have seen more job openings in the financial sector than ever before in the beauty sector," Ringus said.
Others saw a spike in searches for "brand chief merchandising officers," as well as "sales chiefs" and "chief commercial officers," sometimes also called "chief revenue officers."
And of course, there is an increasing demand for people with knowledge of AI and TikTok.
"It's also about the new skill set," Chen said. "If you hire someone, they're much better at AI and they're using TikTok regularly. You need new people who can engage new customers."
In addition to strategies, the MLM market is also changing, which has led to job cuts. Rodan + Fields has unveiled a new business model, cutting around 100 positions.
Effective September 1, the company transitioned from a multilevel direct selling model to a new affiliate program, supported by a broader range of marketing and advertising activities across traditional channels and social media.
Struggling Beautycounter has also cut jobs, but it is not yet known how many employees are affected. Its two standalone stores in New York and Denver will close while it evaluates its retail strategy.
As some companies restructure, smaller brands are rethinking the way they hire for the top echelons of the company.
Take L Catterton-backed skincare brand Eighth Day, whose CEO Savannah Sachs has implemented a number of fractional C-suite roles for a myriad of reasons.
"There's been an interesting evolution around the idea of freelance or part-time talent, particularly at the executive level. The shift is more than just a rebranding from consulting to fractional. It's an indication of how that type of part-time leadership role has evolved to have more impact," she said.
"Rather than advising where it's implicit that you're working on the business but not in the business, a fractional leadership role is one where they're helping to set the strategy and also helping to execute it in a much more integrated way with the existing team, and so it's more impactful. It feels more dedicated," she continued. "But at the same time, the earlier-stage brand or a start-up can punch above their weight in terms of the level of senior talent that they can bring in and pay, and it also allows the executive to maybe oversee a few different businesses."
Cowman sees this too. "I advise a number of my brand clients to do that. It's always really helpful when these younger brands can bring in top talent early on."
From a management perspective, Ringus said there are currently more unemployed beauty managers than in recent years, while there are fewer positions available and more competition for those positions.
"It's really hard when you're trying to find a job and you're making $400,000-$500,000-plus," she said. "It's a combination of the availability of the talent, and then their willingness to look at other opportunities, and then the demand for some of these smaller to mid-sized brands, bringing in the expertise that they need and the bench of talent that they need, but they're often not ready to make that hiring commitment at those kinds of salary levels."
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