Layoff wave: Europe's top fashion e-tailer Zalando to fire 5% of its staff

Surging pandemic demand for tech and e-commerce platforms triggered a hiring frenzy, which has now come back to haunt professionals. The firms which brought too much talent on board anticipating a digital revolution, are now burdened by staff as demand has normalised. Following tech firms which have fired lakhs of people worldwide, Europe's top fashion e-tailer Zalando is laying off hundreds from its 17,000 strong workforce.

The firm has admitted that some segments of the organisation expanded too much and made things too complex for it to act quickly. Zalando is now expected to slash its staff by 5 per cent, which means more than 800 people will lose jobs. With high inflation hitting the spending capacity of consumers across the globe, Zalando is expecting revenues and profits to hit the lower limit of its expectations.

Starting with the tech industry, the layoff wave has swept into other sectors such as media, fashion and banking. The surge in demand during the pandemic, was followed by a saturation in the interest towards online services. This normalisation has made staff costs too much to take for companies.

Although the pandemic recovery was on track, it was hit by changing macroeconomic conditions, largely due to geopolitical factors.