America's Top Grocery Chain Laying Off Employees Left and Right

[Omaha Steve]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/america-s-top-grocery-chain-laying-off-employees-left-and-right/ar-AA1Boajf

Story by Evan Paul • 3h

There are some major changes brewing at Kroger. The grocery chain laid off employees in February and just issued another round of roughly 200 layoffs this week.

According to Supermarket News, Kroger has gone for a second round of layoffs, confirming to the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper that they let go of more corporate workers and members of their data analysis and engineering teams.

But if Kroger is the No. 1 grocery-only chain America — they employ more than 400,000 people — why are they making such drastic cuts across the board in 2025?

Kroger says that the layoffs are part of an “efficiency” drive to better serve customers.

FULL story at link above.

[atreides1]

1. Liars

Kroger is firing people because the quarterly profit reports are coming up!!!

[LiberalArkie]

2. Maybe they have learned something that most corporations do not learn. Corporate workers do not make the money

it is the people out in the real world that makes the corporation the money.

Kind of like how the phone companies kept laying off the craft workers and noticing that the profits did not improve, so they lay off more craft workers and the profits got worse and worse. I don't know if they ever figured out that their 6 figure employees ever were the ones costing money and not the ones actually doing the real work in the field.

[MichMan]

5. Agreed

I worked my career in manufacturing support in manufacturing plants. Our role was necessary, but the only ones that made money for the company were the employees that actually ran the machines to make the parts.

[louis-t]

8. Right, that's why you couldn't find a cashier at Kroger for 2 years.

They've brought back some, but it's mostly self-checkout. I haven't noticed them firing any executives.

[MichMan]

12. The cuts they made were described in the OP

Not at the store level

According to Supermarket News, Kroger has gone for a second round of layoffs, confirming to the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper that they let go of more corporate workers and members of their data analysis and engineering teams.

[MichMan]

3. 200 out of 400,000 doesn't seem like drastic cuts

Don't know how many they laid off earlier, but 200 is 0.05% of their total workforce.

[AllyCat]

11. Oh, well, then it's okay! At least they aren't adding staff.

That would be terribly inconsistent with our current dictatorship.

[highplainsdem]

4. Judging by the second paragraph there, this is almost certainly because of AI. But most companies

don't like to admit that.

[getagrip_already]

7. Yup, a lot of that going on....

Weve been interviewing a number of tech pre sales folks who were laid off when ai went live.

Interesting that the companies they came from have seen error rates skyrocketing and cust sat declining.

But profits.

[louis-t]

6. Ah yes, that old "better serve customers" routine.

Corporations will never tell you the truth. When I called Bigelow about cutting the number of teabags in a box from 24 to 20, their response was "Our customers told us they wanted more conve-e-e-e-e-enient packaging." When I called Starkist to ask how long until we'll be buying 1 oz cans of tuna after shrinking from 7 oz to 6.5 oz to 6 oz to 5 oz in just a few years, I was told "Oh sir, we took out mostly water." The shrinkage in both cases took place overnight, industry-wide, all brands. No collusion there. You couldn't find either product in the larger size anywhere, and it happened in the blink of an eye. I think Kroger sees the writing on the wall. They know we're headed for a major recession, if not depression, and they want to get ahead of the game and pocket a bunch of cash before it hits.

[multigraincracker]

9. MBAs are killing businesses.

I recommend everyone read WHE McKINSEY COMES TO TOWN, The hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm.
For the last 5 years my “efficiency” shopping has included not shopping there.

[AllyCat]

10. We avoid our local Kroger store like the plague.

Overpriced, bad quality, bad service, and mistreated staff. The local Aldi is where just about everyone goes.