Nike’s stranglehold on the world of shoes and apparel has been slowly loosening over the past few years as both Adidas and Under Armour have made tremendous strides in the industry. Not only has the Oregon-based shoe company been competing with other members of the big three for sales, they’ve also been competing for endorsements as a number of high-profile athletes now represent these rivals.
It’s all taken a considerable toll on Nike, which announced earlier this summer that they would be making massive layoffs across all sectors of their staff. Here’s more from Jeff Manning of OregonLive.com:
The athletic footwear giant faces an increasingly difficult market environment and announced in June it would lay off about 2 percent of its workforce. That equates to about 1,400 employees.
The first cuts came in June — most of them in the product development and technology side of the company. Many more, from operations, sales support and customer service and other units, got the bad news this week.
According to the report, the company’s sales are expected to decline next year, which has likewise affected its stock value. This apparently reflects a larger and more troubling trend across the sportswear retail industry as a whole that continues to experience sluggish growth.
It remains unclear exactly what Nike’s new strategy going forward might be, but whatever it is, it’ll be with a significantly leaner staff.
