ATLANTA — Several employees of The Home Depot's Atlanta corporate offices have been let go, with the company confirming to 11Alive on Friday a "very small number" of layoffs.
11Alive could not confirm the precise number. The Home Depot has around 500,000 employees. A number of corporate employees announced on LinkedIn they had been impacted by the layoffs.
In a statement, The Home Depot said the layoffs were confined to "non-store roles."
"Due to changes in our business, we eliminated a very small number of non-store roles. We are focused on doing the right thing and supporting our associates with separation packages, transitional benefits and job placement support," the statement said. "We continue to be optimistic about the long-term opportunity in home improvement, and we’ll continue to invest in our customers, associates and the business."
The move comes as Fortune reported last week that the company was "navigating the remodeling dip" with some consumers abandoning or delaying big home renovation projects.
There was a boom in such projects during and following the pandemic, according to the report, with sales rising 43% for the company between 2019 and 2022 to $157 billion.
Roger Tutterow, an economics professor at Kennesaw State University, said this follows a months-long trend of layoffs at large retailers like Amazon and Walmart, along with banks and tech giants like Meta and Twitter.
"Economic activity may be moderating some," Tutterow said. "I think the risk of recession is clearly elevated, but so far at least we're still adding jobs. Part of this is right-sizing. We had a big surge in activity with all the stimulus spending during the pandemic, and I think some firms extrapolated forward growth that isn't going to be sustainable in the longer run."
Earlier this year, The Home Depot invested $1 billion to raise the minimum wage for frontline workers to $15/hour. However, company earnings reports from May stated that The Home Depot fell well below sales expectations, dropping over 4 percent from the previous year. The Home Depot blamed falling lumber prices and extreme weather.
"Home improvement is our business, and my job is to improve The Home Depot. This is certainly not a turnaround, but what we have to do is leverage our underlying strengths," CEO Ted Decker told Fortune in an interview. "I'm focused on interconnected retail, integrating physical retail and digital."
On LinkedIn, representatives from other companies could be seen reaching out to those impacted by the Home Depot layoffs. Meanwhile, Tutterow said additional layoffs could signal a potential turn for the worse in the larger economy.
"If you are going to lose your job, it's good to do it in a time in which there are lots of job openings out there," Tutterow said. "The second half of the year, you're more likely to see layoffs related to any kind of slowing we have in the economy."
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