Saks Global triggered another round of layoffs this week, giving pink slips to 90 employees within the luxury retailer’s commercial organization, WWD has learned.

The job cuts included the elimination of the merchandising coordinator position, as Saks Global continues to blend the merchandising systems of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus into a single, integrated system.

Also eliminated were the digital beauty specialists at Neiman Marcus, who worked with specific beauty brands and sold to customers. Saks Fifth Avenue eliminated its group of digital beauty specialists in 2023. Currently, Saks Global is looking at opportunities for more broader clienteling.

It is believed that the departing group of 90 individuals represents less than 3 percent of the Saks Global corporate population, and 0.5 percent of the total Saks Global headcount.

Last April, about 550 workers, or 3 percent of Saks Global’s total workforce, including individuals employed at Saks and Neiman’s stores and in other areas, were terminated. In July 2024, around the time when Saks revealed it had a deal to buy NMG, about 100 people were laid off. There’s been much centralization already, involving such areas as legal, technology, operations, communications and finance.

The headcount reduction is part of Saks Global’s strategy to reduce annual costs by $600 million within the next few years and streamline operations. The company is more leveraged with debt since its $2.7 billion acquisition of the Neiman Marcus Group, which closed last December. To buy Neiman’s, Saks took on $2.2 billion in debt from bondholders to finance the deal. In July, Saks made its initial $120 million interest payment to the bond holders.

On Wednesday, Emily Essner, president and chief commercial officer of Saks Global, sent a letter to employees explaining the staff reductions, a copy of which was provided to WWD by a market source who requested anonymity.

“Across Saks Global, we are continuing to progress on our transformation journey and make strides in our efforts to redefine luxury retail. As part of our ongoing integration, today we announced changes within the commercial team to simplify our structure, support key initiatives and drive future growth,” Essner wrote.

“As you know, our team has been working closely to harmonize our merchandising systems, establishing a single cohesive platform for our teams while streamlining processes and creating more consistency for our brand partners. As this work nears completion, we identified an opportunity to further simplify our structure. With this, we shared some changes within our brand partnerships and buying and merchandise planning teams, which will allow us to work more efficiently and effectively together within our integrated systems.”

She indicated that the beauty specialist program has been viewed as a selling tool to drive brand awareness and support product inquiries from customers, and that the company is “well-positioned to continue to enhance and personalize the shopping experience through other existing offerings. As we look to the future, we are focused on more scalable and profitable service strategies, including digital styling and selling, targeted clienteling and brand-led activations and loyalty initiatives.”

Among the 90 employees being let go, some left the company on Wednesday and others will continue through a transition period.

“While these decisions are never easy, they are an expected part of the integration process. I am grateful to these colleagues for their contributions and wish them well in their future endeavors,” Essner wrote. “I know that changes like these can feel unsettling, but I want to reiterate my confidence in the commercial team and my excitement for all that lies ahead. Together, we will continue advancing our efforts to transform the luxury shopping experience and deliver luxury artfully curated for every customer.”

Last July, Marc Metrick, chief executive officer of Saks Global, announced to brand partners as part of the company’s first-quarter earnings disclosure, “We continue to work aggressively to capture synergies and remain on track to reach our accelerated annualized cost reduction target of $600 million over the next few years. So far in fiscal 2025, we have identified more than double the amount of synergies that we originally targeted.”