Leaked Letter Shows Forever 21 Demoting Workers and Cutting Insurance
The company has responded to the numerous angry comments on their Facebook page with the same statement, which denies that their choice to move employees from full to part-time has anything to do with the Affordable Care Act. It also paints the financial circumstances of the clothing chain as more grim than they previously appeared:
[Insert name here], thank you for reaching out. Forever 21, like all retailers, staffs its stores based on projected store sales, completely independent of the Affordable Care Act. After a recent evaluation, Forever 21 realigned its staffing needs to better reflect sales expectations. This realignment impacted less than 1% of all U.S. store employees. Forever 21 values all of its employees and made every effort to affect as few employees as possible in this realignment.
According to Forbes, Forever 21 has 30,000 employees, which would mean that approximately 300 employees nation-wide are being demoted due to this change in policy. The company is worth $3.4 billion, but is privately held. They use cheap labor and knockoff designs to keep their costs down, and because of that, have managed to expand at a rapid rate. They announced plans to open their first store in Russia just last month.
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