Retail theft has harmed Dick’s Sporting Goods employees and profits, the Findlay-based chain said on Tuesday, citing this as one of the reasons it is letting go of an unspecified number of Dick’s Sporting Goods employees.
To realign its investments, Dick’s Sporting Goods employees will be laid off. (Photo: Ad Age)
According to TribLive, in its second-quarter earnings call, the company stated: “We are conducting a business optimization of our organization to better align our talent, organizational design, and spending in support of our most important strategies while also streamlining our overall cost structure.” On August 21, 2023, “as part of our review, we eliminated some positions, primarily at our customer support center.”
Dick’s claimed that weaker sales in the outdoor category and theft and damage to goods were the main causes of the lower profit, referring to the losses as “shrink.”
Navdeep Gupta, executive vice president and chief financial officer, stated that shrink had the biggest impact on the surprise for the second quarter. “We believed we had made enough reservations for it. Our Q2 results were also impacted by the fact that the number of incidents and the impact of organized retail crime were significantly higher than we had anticipated.
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Retailers all over the country struggle with shrink, according to Lauren Hobart, president and CEO.
We all need to collaborate on it with our business partners, trade associations, and our government, according to Hobart. “We’ve all heard the stories, and what’s happening is quite alarming. By stepping up security, installing lockup cameras, collaborating with local law enforcement, and working with our industry partners, we will fight to keep our coworkers, athletes, and stores safe.
As it implements staff reductions, the company anticipates paying out about $20 million in severance during the third quarter. Dick’s Sporting Goods employees are about 18,800 full-time employees and 34,000 part-time employees as of January, the company said. There isn’t a collective bargaining agreement in place for any.
Messages seeking more information on the number of jobs and positions that would be affected were not answered by the company.
Comparable store sales, a crucial retail metric that tracks stores that have been open for at least a year, increased by 1.8% at the sporting goods retailer. The business lost 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year.
Dick’s updated its forecast for 2023 comparable store sales, which ranges from flat to positive 2.0%.
In comparison to the same period a year prior, net income decreased by 23% to $244 million for the quarter that ended on July 29. Net sales continued to increase.
