The Beauty Jobs Market Is In Flux

As the beauty landscape shape shifts around the world — Amazon ascendant, China decelerating, TikTok dominating and new consumers emerging — the beauty jobs market is evolving accordingly.

Companies both established and emerging are reconfiguring their workforces to better meet the demands of these fast-changing times, whether reshaping certain departments, opting for more agility with a fractional model or restructuring.

“The bottom line is simplify to amplify,” said Oliver Chen, an analyst at TD Cowen. “Part of that is managing for speed and agility.”

For many larger players, this changing landscape involves some component of restructuring, with layoffs in certain areas of the business even as others are enhanced.

“The intention is to maximize profitability, given the China slowdown, and also even just a touch of overall slowdown in this market as well,” said Cassie Cowman, a cofounder of View From 32, a beauty consultancy that works with both founders and investors. 

“Companies are figuring out how to structure these teams to maximize that,” she added. “I have some clients that are still seeing decent traffic, for example, but the conversion is very low or maybe the dot-com channel is suffering. So, how are they investing more in the brick-and-mortar business to maximize that channel while it’s seeing strong momentum?”

Unilever has unveiled a “comprehensive productivity program,” involving 7,500 office-based layoffs globally to achieve total cost savings of around 800 million euros over the next three years. British media outlets have reported that, as part of the layoff plan, it is set to cut a third of all office roles in Europe by the end of 2025, or around 3,200 roles.

In February, The Estée Lauder Cos. revealed a restructuring plan, including layoffs, as it continues to tread water amid struggles in Asia and at home. It’s part of the wider Profit Recovery and Growth Plan, designed to make the company more agile. The owner of Clinique, Mac, Tom Ford and others will reduce its 62,000-strong global workforce by between 3 and 5 percent as part of the plan, the equivalent of as many as 3,100 jobs. This will be carried out over the next two-and-a-half years.

That same month, Shiseido introduced a new business plan within which it is offering an early retirement plan to approximately 1,500 employees in Japan to help bolster group growth and profitability. The move is part of an overarching vision. “To achieve sustainable growth, Shiseido Japan will concentrate its activities on brands, products and touchpoints with high growth potential and profitability, strengthening brand and touchpoint strategy,” the company said.

Dyson is also cutting around 1,000 jobs in the U.K., roughly one-third of its U.K. workforce, due to what the company has described as “fierce” global competition.  

At L’Oréal U.S., WWD understands that there has been some restructuring in the consumer products division, resulting in around 40 job losses. These are omni shopper roles, the link between the marketing and sales teams. Sales leads for brands are also being moved to retail leads.

In a WARN notice filed in New York last month, No7 Beauty company said that 64 workers at its Manhattan office would be affected by an office closure. “To enhance our ability to invest in the growth of No7 Beauty Company in the U.S., we are restructuring our organization to work more closely within our own retail partners,” said a spokesman. “Moving forward, we will no longer occupy a small number of desks in a shared office space in New York, and most of our team members are being relocated.” Its parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance has made several rounds of layoffs.

Most recently, LVMH-owed Sephora announced plans to cut its workforce in China by 3 percent, the equivalent to around 120 roles, “in response to the challenging market environment” there.

As for what roles companies are hiring, Lisa Mare Ringus, executive vice president of global client strategy and growth at 24 Seven Inc, noted that there has been interest in specific sales roles such as supporting Amazon, social and content, finance and marketing. 

“We’ve seen more hiring in finance this year than ever before within beauty,” Ringus said.

Others have seen a spike in searches for brand chief merchandising officers, as well as sales chiefs and chief commercial officers, also sometimes called chief revenue officers. 

And of course, those with knowledge of AI and TikTok are increasingly in demand.

“It’s also about the new skill set,” said Chen. “When you hire someone they’re going to be much better at AI and use TikTok regularly. You need new people who can engage new customers.” 

In addition to the strategics, the MLM market has also been changing, resulting in job losses. Rodan + Fields has unveiled a new business model, eliminating about 100 roles.

Starting Sept. 1, the company moved away from a multilevel direct-selling model to a new affiliate program, which will be supported by a broader array of marketing and advertising across traditional channels and social media.

Struggling Beautycounter has also cut jobs, but as of now, it is not known how many staffers were impacted. Its two freestanding stores in New York and Denver will close as it evaluates its retail strategy.

But while some companies are restructuring, some smaller brands are rethinking the way they approach C-suite hiring.

Take skin care brand Eighth Day, which is backed by L Catterton. CEO Savannah Sachs has been implementing some fractional C-suite roles for myriad reasons.

“There’s been an interesting evolution around the idea of freelance or part-time talent, especially at the executive level. The shift is more than just a rebrand from consulting to fractional. It’s indicative of how that type of part-time leadership role has evolved to be more impactful,” she said. 

“Rather than consulting when it’s implied that you’re working on the business, but not in the business, a fractional leadership role is one where they’re helping set strategy and also helping execute in a much more integrated way with the existing team, and so it’s more impactful. It feels more dedicated,” she continued. “Yet at the same time, the earlier stage brand or start-up business can sort of punch above their weight in terms of the level of senior talent they can bring in and afford, and it also allows the executive to see across maybe a few different businesses.”

Cowman is seeing this, too. “I’m advising some of my brand clients as well, to do that. It’s always really beneficial when these younger brands can bring in top level talent early on.”

From the executive side, Ringus said that there are more unemployed beauty executives currently than in recent years amid a backdrop of fewer available positions and increased competition for those roles.

“It’s really hard if you’re trying to find a job and you’re over $400,000/$500,000,” she said. “It’s a combination of the availability of the talent, and then their willingness to look at other opportunities, and then the demand for some of these smaller to midsized brands, with bringing in expertise that they need and the bench of talent that they need, but they’re often not ready to make that hiring commitment at those types of salary levels.”