Obviously this sucks for those impacted, but it’s a relatively small cut (2% of employees). I wouldn’t necessarily read a major culture change at REI from this

Obviously this sucks for those impacted, but it’s a relatively small cut (2% of employees). I wouldn’t necessarily read a major culture change at REI from this alone. It seems to be business-as-usual for a company operating at a modest loss in a high interest rate environment. I have mixed feelings here. I’m a longtime REI shopper and I personally haven’t ever interacted with a “team lead” (role laid off). I mostly order online and sometimes browse their used gear section while in store. I rarely talk to the employees, and to be honest the ones at my store seem kind of annoyed most of the time. On the other hand laying off senior team members is a speedrun nuke of employee morale. You’re taking a place where people thought they could work for years and basically showing them there’ll be no career progression.