Nike’s troublesome year continues to worsen as government filings show the company’s workforce shrunk by more than double the amount of its previously announced layoffs.
Annual reports filed to the SEC on Thursday and first reported by The Oregonian show Nike has 4,300 fewer workers than it did last year, which is far more than the roughly 1,600 layoffs the company announced in February. The company originally announced a 2% cut to its staff, but the filings show The Swoosh employs a 5% smaller workforce than it did last year.
CEO John Donahoe also took an 11% pay cut down to a still-whopping $29.1 million. (His salary is only $1.56 million. The rest comes from stock awards, stock options, a bonus, and charitable matching contributions, according to the filings.)
In the most recent set of layoffs, 40% were vice presidents, directors, or senior directors, amounting to 318 out of 700 cuts. Slashing the workforce has hurt Nike’s stock, falling 20% in just one day in late June. The company also committed a ”sustainability bloodbath,” gutting a fifth of jobs in the sector.
It hasn’t been purely bad news for Nike in 2024. It signed the brightest new star in American sports, Caitlin Clark, to a $28 million shoe deal, and is sponsoring a large swath of athletes in the Olympics. But it hasn’t been enough to appease investors. After the company posted a poor quarterly earnings report in late June, Nike’s shares fell more than 11%.
