Gap will slash HUNDREDS of staff as it tries to cut costs and make company more streamline

Gap is cutting hundreds of staff from its global workforce to slash costs and streamline the company amid plans to cull 350 stores across the US by the end of the year. 

The latest round of cuts are part of a restructuring to make the iconic American fashion brand 'more nimble and less bureaucratic'.

It comes after Gap laid off around 500 corporate employees mainly in its San Francisco and New York offices in September as part of efforts to save $250million a year. 

The retailer saw net sales fall by six per cent to $15.6billion for the fiscal year that ended on January 28 and swung to a loss of $202million from a profit of $256million the year before. 

Gap was previously among the biggest operators of mall stores in country but the brand has been decimated since the pandemic and it has closed 299 stores across the North America since October 2020. 

Chairman and interim chief executive Bob Martin sent a memo to employees last week outlining the latest cuts which will be larger than last time, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Gap is cutting hundreds of staff from its global workforce to slash costs and streamline the company amid plans to cull 350 stores across the US by the end of the year

The retailer's stock price has plummeted by almost 70 per cent in the past five years

'Our goal is to flatten the organization, increase spans of control to create more robust roles and individual empowerment, and decrease layers to remove bottlenecks and make better, faster decisions,' he said. 

Gap started to notify the employees it planned to layoff in its international sourcing division on April 18. 

It will tell those at its San Francisco headquarters about prospective cuts later this week and the finance team will be apprised in late May, according to the memo. 

The leaders of each of the retailer's brands -Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy and Athleta- have been reviewing ways to strip out layers of management to speed up decision making, a source said.

And they added that Gap's restructuring plan is about addressing years of growing bureaucracy which make the company inefficient. 

Gap has fallen behind competition with executives more worries about protecting their area instead of developing new products for shoppers, according to the source, and style decisions were halted in endless meetings.

Gap's restructuring plan is about addressing years of growing bureaucracy which make the company inefficient, according to a source  

The now-closed Gap store at 555 Michigan Ave. on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago

It has had to deal with various issues over the past year with its Old Navy brand including when a plan to make clothing sizes for everyone backfired, a messy split from musician and designer Kanye West and a pile up of excess stock. 

The retailer said it identified an extra $300million in cost cuts back in March made up of stripping away layers of management. 

They didn't reveal how many jobs would be lost but announced the high-profile position of its chief growth officer would be cut and Athleta CEO Mary Beth Laughton also left the company last month.

There are around 95,000 employees of Gap worldwide, as of January, and most work in retail locations while around nine per cent of its staff work in headquarter locations.

Chief financial officer Katrina O'Connell confirmed a further '50 to 55 Gap and Banana Republic stores' in North America will shut this year to meet the 350 store closure target. 

She said: 'We remain on track to achieve our goal of closing 350 non-strategic Gap and Banana Republic stores in North America by the end of 2023 and ended fiscal [year] 2022 having achieved close to 90 percent of that goal.'

The company had around 2,400 stores located in the US. 

Gap's stock price has plummeted by almost 70 per cent in the past five years and they are down by 14 per cent over the past year. 

The company continues to operate without a permanent leader after the previous CEO stepped down last July.

Interim chief executive Martin said in March that the board were close to picking a permanent appointment and that it would be an external candidate. 

One Gap store in Manhattan, New York boarded up its doors and was replaced by the state's first licensed marijuana shop in December which is run by social services group Housing Works.