Toymaker Hasbro lays off 1,100 staff as holiday season fails to lift sales
The toymaker behind Monopoly, PlayDoh and Transformers action figures is laying off 1,100 employees as lackluster sales dragged into the holiday trading season.
Hasbro will cut its workforce by almost a fifth, having already cut 800 jobs earlier this year. The group stressed it was taking the decision, announced just two weeks before Christmas, as “a last resort”.
Chris Cooks, its chief executive, described the move as a “lever we must pull to keep Hasbro healthy” after challenges it endured in the first three quarters of 2023 continued in the fourth. The company is also braced for these “headwinds” to persist in 2024.
“While we’re confident in the future of Hasbro, the current environment demands that we do more, even if these choices are some of the hardest we have to make,” Cooks wrote in an email to staff seen by the Guardian. His message was first reported by the Wall
Street Journal. “I know this news is especially difficult during the holiday season,” he acknowledged, adding that there was “no sugar-coating how hard this is, particularly for the employees directly affected”.
Its struggle contrasts with the success enjoyed by rival Mattel, which was boosted by the blockbuster release of Barbie, based on its doll. While shares in Mattel have risen almost 6% this year, Hasbro’s stock has fallen more than 21% as it grappled with a slowdown in sales.
Cooks said: “We entered 2023 expecting a year of change including significant updates to our leadership team, structure, and scope of operations. We anticipated the first three quarters to be challenging, particularly in toys, where the market is coming off historic, pandemic-driven highs.
“While we have made some important progress across our organization, the headwinds we saw through the first nine months of the year have continued into Holiday and are likely to persist into 2024.”