Source: SAMEER AL-DOUMY / Getty
On March 31, Sephora announced that the popular beauty retail powerhouse wouldn’t re-open their stores as they initially planned. Remember, earlier last month the shut down their stores for two weeks, but since the coronavirus crisis doesn’t look like it’s letting up anytime soon, all North American stories will remain closed until further notice.
“For the health and safety of our community, our stores in the US and Canada remain temporarily closed. We look forward to welcoming you back in when the time is right. Click here for our full updated COVID-19 statement: seph.me/COVID19Update,” the brand tweeted on Tuesday afternoon.
Now what got left out of that press release was that on the very same day, the company had a conference call for a portion of its part-time and seasonal employees to lay them off.
According to Twitter user (@freepark_ing), this is how allegedly how the call went:
While Sephora has yet to verify that this came from them, the company did confirm that the layoffs went down.
WWD wrote that Sephora Americas president and chief executive officer, Jean-André Rougeot, said in a statement that those let go had “been with our company for a short tenure and worked limited hours.” The statement also said those employees would receive severance and “resources to support their transition.”
The exact number let go is unclear.
For now, “Sephora’s remaining 9000-plus US store employees will continue to be paid 100 percent based on their average hours worked and receive any existing health benefits through late May or until the stores reopen.”
Meanwhile, the site is still running.
“Sephora says it is committed to keeping its online business running. In its effort to do this, it has increased pay by $2 an hour for employees in distribution centers until stores reopen,” according to the statement and reporting by WWD.
Those who were let go have flocked to social media to share their stories, with one woman encouraging for even more people to keep sharing:
Take a look at how other employees and shoppers of the store have responded to this news:
Oh No! Sephora Lays Off Portion Of Its Part-Time & Seasonal Employees was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
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Nothing like waking up to a 30 minute notice of a conference call for work, only to get on said conference call and be told every single part time employee employed by Sephora will be laid off effective Friday. Cool. Fine. Great. pic.twitter.com/DoaSMsJ68i
— Rob Carney (@TheRobCarney) March 31, 2020
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FELLOW LAID OFF SEPHORA EMPLOYEES: don’t stop tweeting. Don’t stop raising awareness for what the company did. They sent out a mass email saying they would protect us and take care of us and they lied. Don’t let them get away with this. pic.twitter.com/S1dq8akS45
— Britt (@brittcoorpender) March 31, 2020
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Fuck I’m so sad about being laid off from Sephora, I was getting a promotion in June too 😭😭 praying this shit isn’t permanent
— Ti (@Tiana_Mxrie) April 1, 2020
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@Sephora just laid off hella employees including me on a damn conference call... and offered us one week of pay as a severance package.
— Jes (@Jeslightit) March 31, 2020
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Sephora was pushing ALL OF US TO go to school to get a cosmo / esthetician’s license. They said in return they will compensate us for it once we get the license. So free school...NOW WHAT? You FIRED US? How are you going to fucking repay everyone now?
— Britt (@brittcoorpender) March 31, 2020
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Sephora promised to take care of their employees when this virus shut down stores only to turn around and fire them off today via conference call and that was that. So before you say “who gives a fuck about makeup during a pandemic” it’s not about the makeup, it’s people’s JOBS.
— positiviᵗᵉᵃ (@TeaSpillYT) March 31, 2020
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Me today after reading the news about Sephora pic.twitter.com/iys7uQrYGS
— 𝐃𝐈𝐎 (@GOD_SPEEDXVII) April 1, 2020
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im not upset that i’m out of a job with sephora. i’m more upset at how they did it. i havent been contacted by any managers at all. it’s been almost 2 weeks that the stores have closed. no emails have been sent to me. the only way i find out information is through coworkers -
— steph🔮✨ (@alteregoabby) April 1, 2020
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Think about this before you defend Sephora (they’re owned by LVMH) pic.twitter.com/mDaulbVeMT
— positiviᵗᵉᵃ (@TeaSpillYT) March 31, 2020
