• Companies such as Peloton, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, BlackRock, and UPS have trimmed staff this year.
• In some cases, artificial intelligence is reshaping workforces.
• See the list of companies letting workers go in 2025.

The list of companies laying off employees this year is growing.

Layoffs and other workforce reductions have continued in 2025, following two years of significant job cuts in tech, media, finance, manufacturing, retail, and energy.

While the reasons for slimming staff vary, the cost-cutting measures are coming amid technological change. A World Economic Forum survey found that some 41% of companies worldwide expect to reduce their workforces over the next five years because of the rise of artificial intelligence.

Companies such as Oracle, CNN, Dropbox, and Block have previously announced job cuts related to AI. Though Amazon has not announced job cuts this year, CEO Andy Jassy told employees in June that the company will need "fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today" in the coming years as it expands its use of generative AI and agents.

Meanwhile, tech jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are expected to double by 2030, according to the WEF.

Here are the companies with job cuts planned or already underway in 2025 so far, in alphabetical order.

Adidas plans to cut up to 500 jobs in Germany.

Adidas said in January that it would reduce the size of its workforce at its headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, affecting up to 500 jobs, CNBC reported.

If fully executed, it amounts to a reduction of nearly 9% at the company headquarters, which employs about 5,800 employees, according to the Adidas website.

The news came shortly after the company announced it had outperformed its profit expectations at the end of 2024, touting "better-than-expected" results in the fourth quarter.

An Adidas spokesperson said the company had grown "too complex because of our current operating model."

"To set adidas up for long-term success, we are now starting to look at how we align our operating model with the reality of how we work. This may have an impact on the organizational structure and number of roles based at our HQ in Herzogenaurach."

The company said it is not a cost-cutting measure and could not confirm concrete numbers.

Ally is cutting less than 5% of workers.

The digital-financial-services company Ally is laying off roughly 500 of its 11,000 employees, a spokesperson confirmed to BI.

"As we continue to right-size our company, we made the difficult decision to selectively reduce our workforce in some areas, while continuing to hire in our other areas of our business," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also said the company was offering severance, outplacement support, and the opportunity to apply for openings at Ally.

Ally made a similar level of cuts in October 2023, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Automattic, Tumblr's parent, cuts 16% of staff

Automattic, the parent company of Tumblr and WordPress, said in April it is cutting 16% of its staff globally. The company's website said it has nearly 1,500 employees.

Automattic's CEO, Matt Mullenweg, said in a note to employees posted online that the company has reached an "important crossroads."

"While our revenue continues to grow, Automattic operates in a highly competitive market, and technology is evolving at unprecedented levels," the note read.

The company is restructuring to improve its "productivity, profitability, and capacity to invest," it added.

The company said it was offering severance and job placement resources to affected employees.

BlackRock is cutting 1% of its workforce.

BlackRock told employees it was planning to cut about 200 people of its 21,000-strong workforce, Bloomberg reported in January.

The reductions were more than offset by some 3,750 workers who were added last year and another 2,000 expected to be added in 2025.

BlackRock's president, Rob Kapito, and its chief operating officer, Rob Goldstein, said the cuts would help realign the firm's resources with its strategy, Bloomberg reported.

Block to lay off nearly 1,000 workers

Jack Dorsey's fintech company, Block, is laying off nearly 1,000 employees, according to TechCrunch and The Guardian, in its second major workforce reduction in just over a year.

The company, which operates Square, Afterpay, CashApp, and Tidal, is transitioning nearly 200 managers into non-management roles and closing almost 800 open positions, according to an email obtained by TechCrunch.

Dorsey, who co-founded Block in 2009 after previously leading Twitter, announced the layoffs in March in an internal email titled "smaller block."

The restructuring is part of a broader effort to streamline operations, though Block maintains the changes are not driven by financial targets or AI replacements.

Bloomberg is making cuts in an overhaul of its newsroom

Bloomberg is cutting some editorial staff as the company reorganizes its newsroom, according to a memo viewed by BI. The larger strategy aims to have a larger headcount by the end of this year, however.

The newsroom currently employs around 2,700 people, and the changes will merge some smaller teams into larger units, the memo said.

Blue Origin is laying off one-tenth of its workforce

Jeff Bezos's rocket company, Blue Origin, is laying off about 10% of its workforce, a move that could affect more than 1,000 employees.

In a memo sent to staff in February and obtained by Business Insider, David Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, said the company's priority going forward was "to scale our manufacturing output and launch cadence with speed, decisiveness and efficiency for our customers."

Limp specifically identified roles in engineering, research and development, and management as targets.

"We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed," Limp wrote. "It also became clear that the makeup of our organization must change to ensure our roles are best aligned with executing these priorities."

The news comes after January's debut launch of the company's partially reusable rocket — New Glenn.

Boeing cut 400 roles from its moon rocket program

Boeing announced on February 8 that it plans to cut 400 roles from its moon rocket program amid delays and rising costs related to NASA's Artemis moon exploration missions.

Artemis 2, a crewed flight to orbit the moon on Boeing's space launch system, has been rescheduled from late 2024 to September 2025. Artemis 3, intended to be the first astronaut moon landing in the program, was delayed from late 2025 and is now planned for September 2026.

"To align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations, we informed our Space Launch Systems team of the potential for approximately 400 fewer positions by April 2025," a Boeing spokesperson told Business Insider. "We are working with our customer and seeking opportunities to redeploy employees across our company to minimize job losses and retain our talented teammates."

The company will issue 60-day notices of involuntary layoff to impacted employees "in coming weeks," the spokesperson said.

Boeing cut 10% of its workforce last year.

BP slashed 7,700 staff and contractor positions worldwide

BP told Business Insider in January that it planned to cut 4,700 staff and 3,000 contractors, amounting to about 5% of its global workforce.

The cuts were part of a program to "simplify and focus" BP that began last year.

"We are strengthening our competitiveness and building in resilience as we lower our costs, drive performance improvement and play to our distinctive capabilities," the company said.

Bridgewater cut about 90 staff

Bridgewater Associates cut 7% of its staff in January in an effort to stay lean, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

The layoffs at the world's largest hedge fund bring its head count back to where it was in 2023, the person said.

The company's founder, Ray Dalio, said in a 2019 interview that about 30% of new employees were leaving the firm within 18 months.

Bumble said it intends to cut 30% of its workforce.

In a June 23 securities filing, Bumble said it plans to slash 240 roles, about 30% of its workforce. The dating app company said the cuts will result in charges between $13 million and $18 million in its third and fourth quarters.

"We recently made some difficult decisions to adjust our team structure in order to align with our strategic priorities," a Bumble spokesperson said.

They told BI that the decision to lay off over 200 employees wasn't "made lightly."

Burberry says it plans on cutting 1,700 jobs

Burberry announced 1,700 job cuts in May, or about 18% of its global workforce, as part of plans to cut costs by about £100 million ($130 million) by 2027.

It plans to end night shifts at its Yorkshire raincoat factory due to production over-capacity.

The British company sunk to an operating loss of £3 million for the year to the end of March, compared with a £418 million profit for the previous 12 months.

Chevron is slashing up to 20% of its global head count

Oil giant Chevron plans to cull 15% to 20% of its global workforce by the end of 2026, the company said in a statement to Business Insider in February.

Chevron employed 45,600 people as of December 2023, which means the layoff could cut 9,000 jobs.

The move aims to reduce costs and simplify the company's business as it completes its acquisition of oil producer Hess, which is held up in legal limbo. It is expected to save the company $2 billion to $3 billion by the end of 2026, the company said.

"Chevron is taking action to simplify our organizational structure, execute faster and more effectively, and position the company for stronger long-term competitiveness," a Chevron spokesperson said in a statement.

The cuts follow a series of layoffs at other oil and gas companies, including BP and natural gas producer EQT.

CNN plans to cut 200 jobs

Cable news giant CNN cut about 200 television-focused roles as part of a digital pivot. The cuts amounted to about 6% of the company's workforce.

In a memo sent to staff on January 23, CNN's CEO Mark Thompson said he aimed to "shift CNN's gravity towards the platforms and products where the audience themselves are shifting and, by doing that, to secure CNN's future as one of the world's greatest news organizations."

Coty is cutting about 700 jobs

Coty, which sells cosmetics and fragrances under brands such as Kylie Cosmetics, Calvin Klein, and Burberry, is cutting about 700 jobs.

The company said on April 24 it aimed to cut costs by $130 million a year. Sue Nabi, the CEO, said it aimed to build a "stronger, more resilient Coty that is well-positioned for sustainable growth."

CrowdStrike is cutting about 500 jobs

CrowdStrike, the Texas-headquartered cybersecurity firm, is cutting about 500 jobs, or 5% of its global workforce, as part of a strategic plan to "yield greater efficiencies."

It expects the layoffs to cost between $36 million and $53 million.

CrowdStrike is aiming to generate $10 billion in annual recurring revenue.

The company reported worse-than-expected annual results in March, signaling that it was yet to fully recover from a widespread tech outage linked to CrowdStrike in July 2024.

Disney says it's laying off several hundred employees

Disney confirmed to BI on June 2 that it was laying off several hundred employees globally.

Most of the cuts were to roles in marketing for films and TV under the Disney Entertainment division. Other roles affected included employees in publicity, casting, and development, as well as corporate finance.

In March, the company also cut around 200 people from its ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks. In 2024, the company also had several rounds of layoffs.

Shortly after Bob Iger returned to the company as CEO in 2022, he said 7,000 jobs at Disney would be cut as part of a reorganization.

Estée Lauder will cut as many as 7,000 jobs

Cosmetics giant Estée Lauder said in its second-quarter earnings release on February 4 that it will cut between 5,800 and 7,000 jobs as the company restructures over the next two years.

The cuts will focus on "rightsizing" certain teams, and it will look to outsource certain services. The company says it expects annual gross benefits of between $0.8 billion and $1.0 billion before tax.

Geico has axed tens of thousands of workers

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chair of Insurance Operations Ajit Jain says Geico has reduced its workforce from about 50,000 to about 20,000. Jain revealed the reductions during Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting on May 3 but did not detail over what time frame they took place. Berkshire Hathaway is one of Geico's parent companies.

Warren Buffett's company reported its 2025 first-quarter earnings on during the May 3 meeting, saying Geico earned nearly $2.2 billion in pre-tax underwriting.

GrubHub announced 500 job cuts

Grubhub CEO Howard Migdal announced 500 job cuts on February 28 after selling the company to Wonder Group for $650 million.

With more than 2,200 full time employees, the number of cuts will affect more than 20% of Grubhub's previous workforce.

According to Reuters, Just Eat Takeaway, an Amsterdam-listed company, sold Grubhub at a steep loss compared to the billions it paid a few years prior after grappling with slowing growth and high taxes.

HPE is laying off 2,500 employees

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is cutting 2,500 jobs, or 5% of its employee base, CEO Antonio Neri said on an earnings call on March 6. The cuts are expected take to take place over the next 12 to 18 months.

"Doing so will better align our cost structure to our business mix and long-term strategy," Neri said. The company expects to save $350 million by 2027 because of the reduction.

HPE plummeted about 20% after hours on March 6 after it said business would be affected by recent tariffs, slow server and cloud sales, and "execution issues."

Intel to cut at least 15% of its factory workers

Chipmaker Intel is laying off more than 5,000 employees across four US states, according to a July 16 government filing.

Most of the cuts are happening in California and Oregon, while others are in Texas and Arizona, per updated Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, filings.

Intel began laying off employees in July as part of planned job cuts, the company said in a regulatory filing.

The company told staff on June 14 to expect 15% to 20% of employees in its Foundry division to be laid off this summer, according to a memo reported by The Oregonian. Intel confirmed the authenticity of the memo to BI but declined to comment on its contents.

As of December 2024, Intel employed about 108,900 people. In its annual report, the company told investors that it would reduce its "core Intel workforce" by about 15% in early 2025.

"Removing organizational complexity and empowering our engineers will enable us to better serve the needs of our customers and strengthen our execution," an Intel spokesperson told BI.

Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University will cut over 2,000 jobs after losing $800 million in funding from USAID.

"This is a difficult day for our entire community," a spokesperson told BI. "The termination of more than $800 million in USAID funding is now forcing us to wind down critical work here in Baltimore and internationally."

The news comes after the Trump administration slashed USAID personnel down from over 10,000 to around 300. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently confirmed that 83% of the agency's programs are now dead.

"We can confirm that the elimination of foreign aid funding has led to the loss of 1,975 positions in 44 countries internationally and 247 in the United States in the affected programs," the Johns Hopkins spokesperson said. "An additional 29 international and 78 domestic employees will be furloughed with a reduced schedule."

The layoffs at Johns Hopkins represent the "largest" in the university's history, CNN reported. They'll primarily affect the schools of medicine and public health, along with the Center for Communication Programs and Jhpiego, a nonprofit with a focus on preventing diseases and bolstering women's health, according to the report.

Kohl's is reducing about 10% of its roles

Department store Kohl's announced on January 28 that it reduced about 10% of its corporate roles to "increase efficiencies" and "improve profitability for the long-term health and benefit of the business," a spokesperson told BI.

"Kohl's reduced approximately 10 percent of the roles that report into its corporate offices," the spokesperson said. "More than half of the total reduction will come from closing open positions while the remainder of the positions were currently held by our associates."

Less than 200 existing employees of the company would be impacted, she added.

This follows the company's announcement on January 9 that it would shutter 27 underperforming stores across 15 states by April.

The retailer has been struggling with declining sales, reporting an 8.8% decline in net sales in the third quarter of 2024.

Its previous CEO, Tom Kingsbury, stepped down on January 15. The company's board appointed Ashley Buchanan, a retail veteran who had held top jobs in The Michaels Companies, Macy's, and Walmart, as the new CEO.

Meta is cutting 5% of its workforce

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff he "decided to raise the bar on performance management" and will act quickly to "move out low-performers," according to an internal memo seen by BI in January.

Those cuts started in February, according to records obtained by BI. Teams overseeing Facebook, the Horizon virtual reality platform, as well as logistics were among the hardest hit.

In April, Meta also laid off an undisclosed number of employees on the Reality Labs virtual reality division.

Previously, the company had laid off more than 21,000 workers since 2022.

Microchip Technology is slashing 2,000 jobs

Microchip Technology is cutting its head count across the company by around 2,000 employees, the semiconductor company said on March 3.

The company estimated that it would incur between $30 million and $40 million in costs, including severance, severance benefits, and other restructuring costs.

The cuts would be communicated to employees in the March quarter and fully implemented by the end of the June quarter.

Last year, Microchip announced it was closing its Tempe, Arizona, facility because of slower-than-anticipated orders. The closure begins in May 2025 and is expected to affect 500 jobs.

Microchip's stock had fallen over 33% in the past year.

Microsoft has made several rounds of cuts this year

Microsoft cut an unspecified number of jobs in January based on employees' performance.

Workers were told that they wouldn't receive severance and that their benefits, such as medical insurance, would stop immediately, BI reported.

The company also laid off some employees in January at divisions including gaming and sales. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to say how many jobs were cut on the affected teams.

In May, the company announced layoffs affecting about 6,000 workers.

Another round of layoffs in July will affect less than 4% of its total workforce, or roughly 9,000 employees, based on its head count of around 220,000.

Morgan Stanley plans cuts for the end of March

Morgan Stanley is set to initiate a round of layoffs beginning at the end of March. The firm is eyeing cuts to about 2% to 3% of its global workforce, which would equate to between 1,600 to 2,400 jobs, according to a person familiar with the matter who confirmed the reductions to BI.

The firm's cuts are driven by several imperatives, the person said, pointing to considerations like operational efficiency, evolving business priorities, and individual employees' performance. The person said the cuts are not related to broader market conditions, such as the recent slowdown in mergers and acquisitions that's arrested momentum on Wall Street.

Some MS staffers will be excluded from the cuts, however — namely, the bank's battalion of financial advisors — though some who assist them, such as administrative personnel in its wealth-management unit, could be affected by the layoffs, the person added.

Nextdoor is slashing 12% of its staff

Neighborhood social networking company Nextdoor is cutting 12% of its staff, or 67 jobs, it said on August 7 in its second-quarter earnings report. The move is part of CEO Nirav Tolia's plan to achieve profitability and reorganize the struggling company.

The layoffs are expected to reduce operating expenses by about $30 million, it said in the earnings report.

The company reported a net loss of $15 million, compared to $43 million year-over-year.

Nissan says it will cut 20,000 jobs by 2027

Japanese car giant Nissan is cutting 20,000 jobs by 2027 and reducing the number of factories it operates from 17 to 10 as it struggles with a dire financial situation.

The job losses include the 9,000 layoffs announced late last year, and come as the automaker faces headwinds from US tariffs on imported vehicles and collapsing sales in China.

Nissan reported a net loss of 671 billion yen ($4.5 billion) for the 2024 financial year, and said it would not issue an operating profit forecast for 2025 because of tariff uncertainty.

Oracle is reportedly cutting jobs from its cloud division.

Oracle is cutting jobs in its cloud unit, Bloomberg reported. The cuts come as the company works to curb costs amid spending on AI infrastructure.

Sources familiar with the cuts told Bloomberg that some of the cuts were related to performance issues.

Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Panasonic is cutting 10,000 jobs

Panasonic, the Japanese-headquartered multinational electronics manufacturer, plans to cut 10,000 jobs this financial year, which ends in March 2026. The cuts will affect 5,000 roles in Japan and 5,000 overseas.

In a statement on May 9, the company said it planned to "thoroughly review operational efficiency … mainly in sales and indirect departments, and reevaluate the numbers of organisations and personnel actually needed."

"Through these measures, the company will optimize our personnel on a global scale," the statement added.

Paramount is cutting 3.5% of its US workforce

Paramount told employees it would be laying off 3.5% of US-based staff based in the US, per a memo reported by CNBC on June 10, citing industry-wide declines and a challenging macroeconomic environment.

The move comes after the media company cut 15% of jobs last year to cut costs. Paramount had 18,600 employees at the end of 2024.

It is awaiting regulatory approval of its merger with Skydance Media.

Peloton is looking for $100 million in run-rate savings by next year

Peloton said in its August earnings report that it would cut its global headcount as part of an effort to find $100 million in run-rate cost savings by the end of the next fiscal year.

"As of today, we will have actioned about roughly half of the run rate savings through the reductions in our workforce and we expect to achieve the remainder throughout the balance of the year," CFO Elizabeth Coddington told investors on the earnings call.

The company employed about 2,900 people last year, and approximately 6% of the workforce will be affected by the reductions, Reuters reported.

Porsche is cutting 3,900 jobs over the next few years

Porsche said on March 12 that it plans to cut 3,900 jobs in the coming years.

About 2,000 of the reductions will come with the expiration of fixed-term contractor positions, the German automaker said. The company will make the other 1,900 reductions by 2029 through natural attrition and limiting hiring, it said.

Porsche said it also plans to discuss more potential changes with labor leaders in the second half of the year. "This will also make Porsche even more efficient in the medium and long term," the company said.

PwC is laying off approximately 2% of its US workforce

The Big Four accounting firm said it's cutting roughly 1,500 jobs in the US because its low attrition rates mean not enough people are leaving by choice.

PwC's layoffs began on May 5 and mostly affect the firm's audit and tax lines, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

"This was a difficult decision, and we made it with care, thoughtfulness, and a deep awareness of its impact on our people, appreciating that historically low levels of attrition over consecutive years have made it necessary to take this step," a PwC spokesperson said.

Salesforce is cutting more than 1,000 jobs

Bloomberg reported in February that Salesforce, a cloud-based customer management software company, will slash more than 1,000 jobs from its nearly 73,000-strong workforce.

Affected employees will be eligible to apply to open internal roles, the outlet reported. The company is hiring salespeople focused on the company's new AI-powered products.

The cuts come despite Salesforce reporting a strong financial performance during its third-quarter earnings in December.

Salesforce did not respond to a request for comment.

Scale AI is cutting 14% of its workforce

On July 16, Scale AI laid off about 200 full-time employees and 500 contractors, according to the company.

The 200 full-time cuts make up 14% of the data labeling startup's 1,400-person workforce.

The company is restructuring its generative AI group, according to an email from Scale's interim CEO, Jason Droege, obtained by Business Insider.

The cuts follow Meta's $14 billion investment in Scale AI in June as part of a blockbuster deal. The deal included the hiring of Scale's ex-CEO, Alexandr Wang, and the purchase of equity in almost half of the startup.

Sonos cuts about 200 jobs

Sonos, a California-based audio equipment company, said in a February 5 release that it's cutting about 200 roles.

The announcement came nearly a month after Sonos CEO Patrick Spence stepped down following a disastrous app rollout. Interim CEO Tom Conrad said in the statement that the layoffs were part of an effort to create a "simpler organization."

Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan announced in February that the company is laying off 15% of its corporate staff, or about 1,750 employees.

He said affected workers will keep their pay, benefits, and bonuses through late April, when the separations will take effect.

The company told investors the cuts would save about $210 million this year and $300 million in 2026.

The move comes as Southwest tries to cut costs amid profitability problems. Jordan said this is the first significant layoff the company has had in its 53-year history.

An activist hedge fund took a stake in Southwest in June and has since helped restructure its board and change its business model to keep up with a changing industry. For example, it plans to end its long-standing open-seating policy to generate more seating revenue.

In recent months, the company has also reduced flight crew positions in Atlanta to cut costs.

Starbucks is laying off 1,100 corporate staff

Starbucks planned to notify 1,100 corporate employees that they had been laid off on February 25.

CEO Brian Niccol said in a memo that the layoffs will make Starbucks "operate more efficiently, increase accountability, reduce complexity and drive better integration."

The layoffs won't affect employees at Starbucks stores, the company said.

Niccol told employees that layoffs were on the way in a separate memo in January. The company is trying to improve results after sales slid last year.

Stripe laid off 300 employees

Payments platform Stripe laid off 300 employees, primarily in product, engineering, and operations, according to a January 20 memo obtained by BI.

Chief people officer Rob McIntosh said in the memo that the company still planned on growing its head count to about 10,000 employees by the end of the year.

UPS is cutting 20,000 jobs

UPS announced on April 29 that it plans to cut 20,000 jobs this year — about 4% of its global workforce — as part of a shift toward automation and a strategic reduction in business with Amazon.

"With our action, we will emerge as an even stronger, more nimble UPS," the company's CEO, Carol Tomé, said in a statement.

The move follows a sharp 16% drop in Amazon package volume in Q4 and is part of a plan to halve its Amazon business by mid-2026. UPS will also close 73 US buildings by June and automate 400 facilities to reduce labor dependency.

The Teamsters union have said they would fight any layoffs affecting its members.

The Washington Post cut 4% of its non-newsroom workforce

The Washington Post eliminated fewer than 100 employees in an effort to cut costs, Reuters reported in January.

A spokesperson told the news agency that the cuts wouldn't affect the newsroom: "The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are."

Wayfair laid off 340 tech employees

Wayfair announced in an SEC filing on March 7 that it would eliminate its Austin Technology Development Center and lay off around 340 tech workers.

The reorg comes as the technology team has accomplished "significant modernization and replatforming milestones," the company said in the filing. Wayfair said it plans to refocus resources and streamline operations to promote its "next phase of growth."

"With the foundation of this transformation now in place, our technology needs have shifted," the company said.

Wayfair expects to take on $33 to $38 million in costs as a result of the reorganization, consisting of severance, cash employee-related costs, benefits, and transitional costs.

Workday cut more than 8% of its workforce

Workday, the human-resources software company, said in February that it is cutting 8.5% of its workforce, or around 1,750 employees. The layoffs came as the company focuses more on artificial intelligence.

In a note to employees, CEO Carl Eschenbach said that Workday will focus on hiring in areas related to artificial intelligence and work to expand its global presence.

"The environment we're operating in today demands a new approach, particularly given our size and scale," Eschenbach wrote. He said that affected employees will get at least 12 weeks of pay.

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• CEO John Stankey is reshaping AT&T to be leaner and more nimble like Verizon and T-Mobile.
• The 140-year-old telecom company's transition shows signs of paying off, with its stock outpacing rivals so far this year.
• To accomplish this, Stankey has shown himself willing to make big bets. So far, Wall Street seems to approve.

AT&T is facing a once-in-a-century challenge, and CEO John Stankey is pushing the company to "disrupt itself" and go hardcore to meet the moment.

The telecom's sprawling network of copper wires is no longer suited to 21st-century demands for speed and mobility, demands that increasingly require new infrastructure of fiber optic networks and wireless spectrum.

Stankey, who took the helm as CEO in July 2020, knows this. He's shown himself willing to do something about it — even if that means a sharp departure from the legacy company's past to prepare for the future.

As the company moves to sunset most of its copper network in the US by the end of 2029, Stankey has also instituted a broad cultural shift internally. He's moved away from prioritizing 20th-century corporate values like loyalty and tenure in favor of a tech-style, "more market-based culture," the AT&T CEO wrote in a sweeping memo last week that was first reported by Business Insider.

It's a strategy that is showing signs of paying off, with many Wall Street analysts recently boosting their price targets for the stock. AT&T shares are up 22% this year compared to 8.25% for T-Mobile and 6.7% for Verizon.

"They refocused on fundamentals, and the fundamentals are just getting better," BNP Paribas telecom analyst Sam McHugh told Business Insider. "Investors really like that simple strategy. It gives a very clear message — it's delivering financially."

It's a transition that Stankey says is vital to the company's future — and will take time to accomplish.

"We are midstream on a multi-year journey to build the company we want, not simply optimize the one we have," the CEO wrote in his memo.

"I tried to pick my brain for an example of another 100+ year old company that didn't have to disrupt itself to secure sustainable relevance. I am still searching for the first example," he added. "I suspect our willingness to disrupt ourselves is the under-pinning of why this company approaches 150 years of relevance."

AT&T's bid for continued relevance has meant the building of large and growing wireless and fiber optic networks as it looks to fend off increasing competition from Verizon, T-Mobile, and a host of smaller operators.

The company has managed to keep pace with its top competitors in terms of mobile phone accounts as it ramps up an aggressive fiber optic expansion that Stankey says will lead to further mobile signups from customers looking to bundle services.

AT&T beat expectations for its second quarter earnings, released in July, on the back of strong wireless and fiber subscriber growth and a multi-year estimated tax benefit of up to $8 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

It could face a more challenging second half of the year.

The company said that some of the second quarter's lift came from new customers pulling orders forward to avoid tariff-related price hikes, and that it was cautiously anticipating higher rates of customer churn in the latter half of the year.

"We are assuming that we're going to continue to have a competitive environment," AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches told analysts.

Another area that Stankey is reshaping is AT&T's workforce.

Without such a massive legacy copper network to support, most of AT&T's competitors have managed to grow with a comparatively smaller head count.

AT&T now has roughly 141,000 employees, and the company has taken several rounds of reductions in recent years to align its workforce more with its peers. Verizon has 99,000 and T-Mobile has 70,000, and Verizon also gave buyouts last year to some 4,800 workers.

The increasingly strict return-to-office mandate that AT&T has rolled out in phases over the past year has also resulted in further reductions, multiple employees have told Business Insider, and Stankey signaled in his memo that he's fine with more people leaving if they're not on board with the company's new direction.

"If a self-directed, virtual, or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish," he said in the memo.

Stankey has taken a similar my-way-or-the-highway approach in the past.

He was the company's chief operating officer who drove the acquisition of Warner Media and reportedly led the division with a high-handedness that ruffled the entertainment executives. The move was part of a larger trend of network services providers seeking to own content producers, and Stankey (as CEO) shrugged off setbacks as he pursued a vision of expanding HBO to rival Netflix and Amazon Prime.

AT&T jettisoned Warner Media in 2022 at a loss of over $40 billion, and finalized its exit from the media business earlier this year when it sold its remaining stake in DirecTV to private equity firm TPG at a steep discount.

While Stankey's apparent appetite for taking big bets seems unchanged, the circumstances around this chapter in the company's history are potentially more favorable.

"I'm sure there's a book to be written one day of how you can turn around your profile among investors," said McHugh, the BNP Paribas telecom analyst, who said many long-term investors previously dismissed the company for its poor execution and misallocation of capital into non-core assets, like the media deals Stankey led.

"I covered European telcos for a long time. Basically, the stocks that do best in the sector are the ones who have a simple story and just focus on their core competencies," he added. "By luck or by good judgment, I think they're now on the right track."

In his memo, Stankey said the workplace and technological shifts were essential for AT&T to succeed in the market, citing US Army General Eric Shinseki as saying, "If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more."

• Aritzia CEO Jennifer Wong laid out some ambitious goals last year for a US expansion.
• Now, the women's wear retailer appears to be beating expectations for store count and sales.
• BI took a closer look at the 41-year-old company that is seeing a new chapter of success.

Watch out, Lululemon: Another Vancouver-based apparel maker is making a play for US shoppers.

Aritzia, the everyday luxury womenswear retailer, has steadily gained ground and grown sales over the past several years with its assortment of stylish activewear and comfortable office wear.

The company said in July that it grew its retail footprint by 25% over the last year, including opening 13 stores and redesigning three existing ones. The expansion helped drive retail sales up 34% year over year last quarter.

"We've done a lot of work over the past 1 1/2 years, two years to refine our playbook and ensure that our inventory is productive and efficient. And I think we're in a fantastic place right now, very well-positioned," CEO Jennifer Wong said in an earnings call.

The results appear to be delivering on some ambitious goals Wong laid out last year as Aritzia's US expansion was heating up.

Wong was not immediately available for an interview with Business Insider, but she detailed her strategy in several interviews with other outlets.

"We're tackling all the major cities where we know our brand and product resonates with the customer," she told Vogue Business last November. "The next step is to fill in the rest of the country."

Founded in 1984 in Vancouver, Aritzia saw steady growth in Canada before entering the US in 2007. The company saw a bumper year in 2020, followed by some pandemic-era challenges, and has since tripled sales to more than CAD$2.7 billion last year.

Wong has been with the company since its early days, rising through the ranks to eventually take over the helm from founder Brian Hill in 2022. She soon doubled the rate of store openings, helping to extend the momentum of the return-to-office era.

"We experienced some explosive growth coming out of Covid," she said. "There was pent-up demand and a whole new energy. That really accelerated our business in the US, and we became more well known than ever. We've been really riding that momentum since."

There are 68 locations in Canada and 63 in the US, and the company says it could see the US figure grow to more than 150 over the next few years, not to mention its growing e-commerce operation.

Four of those locations will open in the next few months in the Boston area, Miami, Salt Lake City, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

While Aritzia's stores have drawn some derision on TikTok for their mirrorless (and sometimes crowded) dressing rooms, its high-touch "style advisor" sales approach harkens back to the kind of personalized shopping experience offered at luxury department stores like Bergdorf Goodman.

Of course, it's the clothing that ultimately makes or breaks the sale for fashion brands, and Aritzia appears to be delivering good value for its customers.

In terms of style and substance, BI's reviews team called Aritzia's apparel "as timeless and elegant as it is trendy and modern" and said the quality is "undisputed."

Price-wise, analysts at Jefferies looked at comparable products from nine peer retailers and found Aritzia to be a cut above the mid-tier but a step below the highest-priced brands. In other words, it is more expensive than Lululemon and J. Crew but less pricey than Anthropologie and Madewell. In addition, Aritiza's prices are less frequently marked down than some competitors.

The Jefferies analysts suggested that the relative pricing and demand for Aritzia products give the company more room to grow in sales and profits, propelling its expansion.

From its merchandise to stores to tech, it appears Aritzia is getting a lot of retail fundamentals right — and reaping the rewards.

"It's not any one of those things, but it's all of these things that come together and how we've been able to execute well over the years on all of it," Wong told the Business of Fashion in January. "When I say we want to be excellent at everything, that's really what's in our minds."

• Apple is investing $500 million in MP Materials, a US producer of rare earth magnets.
• News of the deal sent MP Materials' stock price soaring more than 25% Tuesday.
• The move also sends a message to President Donald Trump, who has pressured Apple to build in the US.

American manufacturing is getting a half-billion-dollar boost from Apple.

The Cupertino-based iPhone maker said Tuesday it has reached a $500 million deal with MP Materials to buy US-made rare earth magnets.

"Rare earth materials are essential for making advanced technology, and this partnership will help strengthen the supply of these vital materials here in the United States," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.

Rare earths are used in the production of high-powered magnets that enable a wide range of electronic functions, ranging from electric motors and generators to wireless charging and haptic touch responses in mobile devices.

While new supplies of rare earths continue to be mined, Apple's initiative with MP Materials focuses on reclaiming and recycling neodymium magnets specifically for Apple devices from used consumer electronics and post-industrial scrap.

News of the deal sent MP Materials' stock price soaring more than 25% on Tuesday morning, topping a prior price high reached in April 2022.

The gains extend a run that started last week when MP Materials inked a multibillion-dollar deal with the US Department of Defense that guarantees a price floor for two of the most popular rare earth metals that is nearly twice as high as the Chinese market level, Reuters reported.

The move also sends a message to President Donald Trump, who has pressured Apple to make more of its products in the US.

"I said to Tim, I said, 'Tim, look, we treated you really good, we put up with all the plants that you build in China for years, now you got build us," Trump said in May.

Apple said in its release that this purchase commitment is part of a larger pledge to spend more than $500 billion in the US over the next four years.

The company also said that MP Materials will provide "extensive" training at its new factory in Texas to build a new specialized workforce for magnet manufacturing.

• Sierra is TJX's outdoor lifestyle brand, selling apparel, gear, home goods, and pet products.
• It's still relatively small, but TJX said the chain could grow to 325 locations.
• Business Insider visited a store for a closer look at T.J. Maxx's younger, sportier sibling.

Shopping for outdoor lifestyle stuff is normally a quick way to burn a lot of cash.

Whether at Dick's Sporting Goods or REI, well-made apparel and gear usually come at a premium price — even with the occasional coupon or sale.

My consumer experience with activewear (and inactivewear), shoes, and other accessories led me to believe the relationship between quality and price was somewhat fixed.

That was before I discovered Sierra.

I gave my local store in Madison, Wisconsin, a look for the first time a few years ago.

I've done plenty of shopping at Sierra's more widely known siblings, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods, and I never really felt the spark that keeps die-hard Maxxinistas coming back. Yes, the discounts at those stores seem large, but I'm not always able to tell if the price is actually a good value — especially if I don't recognize the brand.

Scanning the racks at Sierra was a different story, however. These were brands that I knew and trusted, like Smartwool, Carhartt, and more.

Each time I came back, I wondered why the Sierra brand wasn't more widely known relative to TJX's other brands and even other outdoor retailers.

It turns out, the reason is pretty simple. The brand was, and still is, fairly small and a more recent addition to the TJX portfolio.

Originally called Sierra Trading Post, the company started as a catalog company in 1986 in Reno, Nevada. It later moved to Wyoming and launched its e-commerce business in 1999.

TJX acquired it for $200 million in 2012. The first TJX-owned stores were located in Denver, followed by its first East Coast location in Burlington, Vermont.

In 2018, with a fleet of a few dozen stores, TJX relocated the company's headquarters to its main offices in Framingham, Massachusetts, and dropped the "Trading Post" from the name. The brand has since been on a growth spurt, on track to have 137 US locations by the end of this year.

In the longer term, TJX said it expects the brand to have 325 locations, more than triple the number of stores it had a year ago.

That gives Sierra the fastest growth rate of any brand in the TJX portfolio, though in fairness, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls have more than 2,500 US locations combined, so their growth is slower.

Sierra's tiny stature means it barely receives individual mention in TJX earnings calls beyond annual announcements of planned store openings, per equity research platform AlphaSense.

Out of the spotlight, Sierra has nevertheless been busy.

Foot traffic data from Placer.ai found that customer visits doubled between 2019 and 2022, driven in part by a pandemic-era rush to spend more time outside. While some of that increase is a result of simply having more stores, visits per store were also up, Placer.ai said.

In one of Sierra's rare mentions, TJX CEO Ernie Herrman characterized the store's assortment as "moderate to very high end " in 2022. My experience certainly supports his assessment.

Some recent treasure-hunt finds include the pair of Fjällräven pants I got, the pair of Lodge cast iron enamel dutch ovens in my kitchen, and an ever-expanding collection of insulated drinkware from Yeti, Stanley, and Hydro Flask.

High-quality items from known brands have also given me the confidence to try unfamiliar offerings from the store's assortment, and I am rarely disappointed. Hydrapeak's mugs may not have the current cultural cachet of Stanley's cups, but they do a solid job for a fraction of the price.

Sierra's selection can be somewhat limited compared to a traditional retailer's, but I almost always find something worthwhile. I now make a point of checking Sierra before or after trips to REI and Dick's.

Neither of those competitors is sleeping on Sierra, though.

In addition to its Public Lands stores, Dick's has recently experimented with clearance stores like the Warehouse Sale and Going Going Gone. And the online REI Outlet offers deep discounts on many of the items the co-op carries in its stores.

Still, Sierra has been in the game for a long time online, and its physical presence is expanding at a rate that could see it match REI's store count in just a few years.

Another difference is that, unlike other national or regional outdoor lifestyle chains, Sierra's parent company is a powerhouse of off-price retailing.

TJX's fingerprints are all over Sierra's stores, and the combination of its tried-and-tested playbook with this retail category makes the small but mighty brand an exciting one to follow.

• Declining foot traffic and rising e-commerce have led thousands of stores to permanently close.
• Former household names like Borders, Circuit City, and Blockbuster are now just retail history.
• BI rounded up dozens of once-beloved stores that no longer have a meaningful brick-and-mortar presence.

Brick-and-mortar retail is a tough business.

One day, your favorite brand can be riding high and enjoying strong sales from loyal customers, while the next it's fighting for survival and fending off creditors.

Emerging trends, changing shopping patterns, and new e-commerce players are increasingly reshuffling the game.

Here's a look back at some of the retail brands whose stores once greeted thousands of people each day, but are now consigned to retail's history books — or exist only online or as a tiny fraction of what they once were.

Blockbuster

Blockbuster started in 1985 and acquired the Sound Warehouse and Music Plus music chains to create Blockbuster Music in 1992. The music division was sold to Wherehouse Entertainment in 1998 before closing for good, but there remains one single Blockbuster video rental store in Bend, Oregon.

Thom McAn

Thom McAn was a chain of shoe stores that peaked in the 1960's and closed up shop by 1996. The brand's shoes continued to be available at Sears and Kmart.

Kinney Shoes

First opened in 1894, Kinney Shoes had 467 stores at its peak, all of which shuttered in 1998.

Warner Bros. Studio Store

Warner Bros. Studio Store competed with the Disney store until the company closed all of its locations in 2001.

Zany Brainy

Zany Brainy filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and closed all locations in 2003. The educational toy retailer's founder, David Schlessinger, co-founded the discount company Five Below.

Ames Department Store

Debt and poor sales forced Ames Department Store into bankruptcy twice, and in 2002, the remaining Ames stores closed.

Imaginarium

Imaginarium was an educational toy store in the 1980s. Stores started closing in the 1990s, and by 2003, parent company Toys R Us closed all remaining locations.

Hecht's Department Store

Hecht's was purchased by Macy's in 2005, and all locations were either turned into Macy's stores or closed.

Marshall Fields

Federated Department Stores bought Marshall Fields in 2005 and converted the stores to the company's more recognizable flagship brand, Macy's.

Gadzooks

Gadzooks was a teen clothing store that was around from 1983 to 2005. It filed for bankruptcy in its final year and was purchased by Forever 21, which then closed all of the stores.

Kaufmann's

In 2006, Macy's retired the Kaufmann's name, and the brand disappeared.

Tower Records

Tower Records couldn't keep up with the rise of digital music, and all stores in the US were closed in 2006.

Media Play

Media Play was a big box store that sold books, movies, software, toys, and video games. It closed in 2006.

Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel's 103 stand-alone stores closed in 2007.

KB Toys

KB Toys announced it would be going out of business in 2008, and by early 2009 all locations were closed.

Sharper Image

Sharper Image declared bankruptcy in 2008, but the company still sells merchandise through its website, catalog, and third-party retail partners.

Levitz Furniture

Levitz Furniture declared bankruptcy twice — first in 1997, and then in 2005. It closed all of its stores in 2008.

Linens 'n Things

Linens 'n Things had more than 500 stores in 2006, but by the end of 2008, they were all closed. The company still does business online.

Mervyn's

Mervyn's once had almost 200 locations in the western US. In 2008, the company declared bankruptcy and closed all of its stores.

Limited Too

Limited Too's success began dwindling in the early 2000s, and all stores were eventually rebranded as Justice by 2008.

Tweeter

Tweeter filed for bankruptcy in 2008, and all of its stores were closed by the end of the year.

Circuit City

Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and shuttered all stores the following Spring.

Steve & Barry's

Steve & Barry's filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and closed all of its stores in 2009.

Filene's and Filene's Basement

Filene's Basement's parent company went bankrupt in 2009, and by 2011 all of its stores were closed.

B. Dalton Books

B. Dalton was acquired by Barnes & Noble in 1987, which officially closed the bookstore in January 2010, except for a single location in Oviedo, Florida.

Waldenbooks

Waldenbooks merged with Borders in 1994, and all Waldenbooks stores closed when Borders Group liquidated in 2011.

Borders Books & Music

Borders Books & Music stores closed shortly after the company was forced to liquidate in 2011.

CompUSA

CompUSA started in 1984, but by 2007, Best Buy and other superstores had taken over, and the last CompUSA closed in 2012.

Sam Goody

Sam Goody music stores suffered from the rise of digital media, and most Sam Goody stores were either ultimately shuttered or converted into other brands like FYE by 2012.

A&P

A&P filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010 and again in 2015, closing its stores that year.

 

Sports Authority

Competition drove Sports Authority into bankruptcy in 2016, when it closed all its stores and sold its website to Dick's Sporting Goods.

Sport Chalet

Sport Chalet, which first opened in 1959, abruptly closed all of its stores in 2016.

Wet Seal

Wet Seal, a teen clothing store, filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and closed for good in 2017.

Virgin Megastores

Virgin Megastores stopped operating in the US in 2017, but the brand continues online and in select international markets.

The Limited

The Limited abruptly shut down all of its stores in 2017, and the brand is now sold exclusively through Belk.

Teavana

Teavana's 379 locations were closed by its parent company, Starbucks, in 2018.

Bon-Ton Stores

The Bon-Ton stores included its namesake brand, as well as Bergner's, Boston Store, Elder-Beerman, and Younkers.

Henri Bendel

After 123 years of business, luxury retailer Henri Bendel closed all of its stores in 2019.

Dress Barn

Dress Barn shut down in 2019 after 50 years in business.

Papyrus

At its peak in 2009, Papyrus had 500 stores across the US and Canada, but the company ultimately filed for bankruptcy and closed its 254 stores in 2020.

Lord & Taylor

Lord & Taylor filed for bankruptcy in 2020, leading to the closure of its 38 stores. An attempt at reviving the brand as a "digital collective" was unsuccessful.

Olympia Sports

After a slow decline and a tumultuous stint with private equity owners, Maine-based Olympia Sports shut down its remaining stores in 2022.

Bed Bath & Beyond

Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy and closed its 896 remaining stores in 2023, though the brand was sold and relaunched online.

In October 2024, Beyond and Kirkland's Home announced a $25 million deal to open 15,000-square-foot small-format "neighborhood" Bed Bath & Beyond locations across the US in 2025. The companies said the concept would include an assortment of classic BB&B products.

Tuesday Morning

The Dallas-based home goods company shut down all of its stores in 2023 after it had only planned to close half of its stores amid bankruptcy proceedings.

Christmas Tree Shops

The Massachusetts-based seasonal specialty retailer filed for bankruptcy in 2023, winding down the remaining 72 locations across 20 states.

Rue21

Teen apparel retailer rue21 — known for its presence in shopping malls — filed for bankruptcy for the third time in May 2024. The company's 540 locations also shut down.

The retailer had attempted multiple turnaround plans after a 2017 bankruptcy and 2023 bankruptcy filing.

Payless Shoesource

Payless ShoeSource was once the largest and most successful family-owned business in the country.

The company filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and 2019, and ended up closing all of its locations. The brand still lives on as a store on Amazon.com.

Conn's HomePlus

Conn's HomePlus, a home goods retailer known throughout the South, filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2024 before announcing that it was shuttering all of its stores.

The chain operated more than 170 stores in 15 states.

Joann Fabrics and Crafts

In February 2025, Joann said that it had reached a deal to sell its assets and wind down operations, including closing around 300 remaining stores.

"We deeply appreciate our dedicated Team Members, our customers and communities across the nation for their unwavering support for more than 80 years," the company said in a statement.

The fabric and crafts chain experienced two rounds of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in less than a year.

Party City

Party City went bankrupt and announced in December 2024 that it was closing down all locations.

Party City was impacted severely by the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns and social distancing ended many celebratory gatherings, and other mass retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target stepped up their party supply offerings.

A small number of Party City locations are still open for the time being, according to the store locator.

Moosejaw

Dick's Sporting Goods shut down outdoors retailer Moosejaw shortly after purchasing the brand from Walmart.

The company was originally founded in Michigan in 1992, and was later bought by Walmart in 2017 for $51 million.

Forever 21

Forever 21 was once an iconic fast-fashion mainstay of shopping malls, but it eventually succumbed to rising costs and new competition.

The brand was a popular choice for budget-minded shoppers and helped inspire the fast-fashion trend later followed by brands like Temu and Shein, which the company later cited as threats to its existence.

• Costco has been clamping down on shoppers using membership cards that don't belong to them.
• There are still ways to shop without a membership: online, with a gift card, or as a member's guest.
• The extra charges and hassle of workarounds can quickly add up to more than the annual fee, though.

Costco's Netflix-style crackdown on unauthorized membership sharing over the past two years raises a perennial question about how to access the jumbo packs of toilet paper, tubs of salted caramels, 40-pound bags of dog food, and other staples without signing up for a membership.

Access to the warehouse club and its bulk-price deals is primarily reserved for card-carrying shoppers with Gold Star, Executive, or Business memberships. These memberships start at $65 a year and include access for two shoppers who live in the same household (or work for the same business).

There are still ways to shop Costco's selection without paying the fee.

Here are three ways.

1. Shop online without a Costco membership

While some items on Costco.com are reserved for members, non-members can shop through the site's Instacart-powered Same-Day option or Costco's partnership with Uber Eats. The same-day services offer about 2,000 fresh, frozen, grocery, and household items for delivery.

The best prices on those platforms are reserved for members only, though. Uber says members will pay 15% to 20% less than non-members. On Instacart, non-members may be assessed a 5% surcharge on some orders.

Beyond the fees, pricing online is generally higher than at the warehouse. Costco is upfront about that.

Its pricing policy states: "Item prices are marked up higher than your local Costco warehouse. Instacart uses the markup to pay for their delivery service."

A 2022 analysis from Insider's Reviews team found that the best prices on Costco items are found in person. Business Insider also compared online and in-store pricing for a basket of commonly purchased items and found that this is still largely true.

For example, on June 18, a 30-roll pack of toilet paper cost $20.99 in the warehouse. On Instacart, the same pack costs $24.56 for members and $25.79 for non-members.

Other items in the basket included Costco's famous rotisserie chicken, salted caramels, eggs, dog food, bottled water, and coffee beans.

The pre-tax total for the seven in-warehouse items was $98.43, compared to $120.92 for non-members on Instacart. The difference of $22.49 was made up of $16.73 in higher pricing and a $5.76 5% surcharge. The comparison does not include a driver tip or rush fee.

The savings mean the $65 Gold Star membership fee would pay for itself after three trips to a warehouse, and six trips would cover the cost of a $130 Executive membership.

For non-members, when you add the higher listing prices and surcharges, Costco's savings compared to other retailers like Walmart or Amazon might not be as substantial.

2. Use a Costco gift card without a membership

Another popular workaround is to use a Costco gift card, known as a Shop Card, which allows shoppers to access the warehouse to use the funds.

The hitch with this approach is that Shop Cards are only available for members to purchase and have a minimum value of $25.

That $25 would quickly be used up in one visit, and it could be a useful hack for helping friends and family stock up on supplies. However, you might catch some pushback trying to buy $200 more stuff than your gift card is loaded for.

It's an easy way to let someone explore the club on their own without the commitment of membership. If they do decide to sign up, the Shop Card funds can be put toward the annual fee.

3. Visit the Costco warehouse as the guest of a member

Costco's policy allows members to bring two guests with them to the warehouse. Once again, there is a hitch: only the member is allowed to pay for purchases.

As with the Shop Card hack, this approach depends on a fair amount of trust between the member and the non-member, not to mention coordinating schedules to make a trip to the warehouse and sort everything out on Venmo afterward.

Bottom line: It probably makes sense to just pay the fee

Given the costs and complications of trying to avoid shelling out the $65 membership fee, it may make more financial sense to simply pay the charge, especially for shoppers who expect to make more than a couple of Costco trips a year.

As BI's Reviews team found, and BI again confirmed, the prices of bulk-size items can add up quickly. Shaving a few percent off in fees means the breakeven point comes after a few trips.

As the company puts it, "rest assured that the cost of membership can be recovered quickly thanks to massive price savings once you start shopping."

Either way, the real kicker is even simpler: if you don't think the membership is worth it, you can get a refund.

• Costco is bringing back a key perk for shoppers in its higher-priced membership tier.
• Starting June 30, executive members will be able to shop an hour earlier than Gold Star members.
• Slightly less than half of Costco members pay for the executive tier, but they represent 73% of sales.

A big perk is coming to Costco's higher-priced membership tier.

The warehouse club said it would begin allowing executive members in the US to shop an hour earlier than standard members starting June 30, according to an email to employees seen by Business Insider.

"Our Executive Members are our most loyal members, and we want to reward them for their commitment to Costco," the email said.

Costco did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Executive members were previously offered extended shopping hours at some locations, but the perk was phased out in recent years, Costco Insider reported.

The company also said in the email that executive members would start receiving a $10 monthly credit for Instacart orders and $150 worth of other benefits and savings on Costco services.

Costco's higher-priced membership comes with several benefits, including 2% rewards on purchases.

Slightly fewer than half of Costco members are executive-tier, which costs twice as much as the standard $65-a-year level, called Gold Star. Executive members account for more than 73% of the company's total sales, according to the company.

Improving the attractiveness of the executive upgrade could help Costco boost membership fee revenue and drive higher sales. It might also alleviate traffic that has been a challenge for some stores.

Costco has also been testing earlier hours at its gas stations for all members. The company said during its May earnings call that the impact on sales has been positive so far.

• Millions of US households will soon be able to try drone delivery as Walmart and Wing expand access.
• The service is coming to 100 more stores across several Southeast metro areas.
• Wing says thousands of customers use the service each week to purchase items they need fast.

Baby wipes and eggs.

Those are two of the top products Wing CEO Adam Woodworth says Walmart shoppers commonly order using his company's drone delivery service.

"The baby wipes one makes total sense to me," he told Business Insider. "It's a problem when you run out."

The reason for eggs' popularity was less obvious to him until he realized customers were most likely testing the technology's handling.

"If you can get eggs delivered and they show up and they're not cracked, you can get pretty much anything delivered," Woodworth said.

Millions more households will soon be able to try drone delivery, as Walmart and Wing announce their largest expansion yet.

The companies said Thursday that they are bringing the service to 100 more US stores across metro areas, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. They're also expanding in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, where the tech has been live for the past year and a half.

Woodworth said drone delivery is proving popular in the areas where it is widely available. Thousands of customers are turning to the service each week to purchase everyday items like groceries or household supplies.

"You're cooking dinner and you realize that the recipe called for scallions and you forgot to get them at the store," he said. (Walmart CEO Doug McMillon previously said he used the service to order last-minute cooking wine for dinner without leaving the couch.)

Wing's drones have a payload of five pounds, which means they can carry about half of the 120,000 items typically found at a Walmart Supercenter. In other words, not a gallon of milk, which weighs eight pounds, but a quart to get you through the morning rush.

Wing said the average delivery time is under 19 minutes. Woodworth said the company wants to get that down to 15.

"Something where it would be way faster to get it delivered than to jump in your car and go drive to the store," he said.

(For the parents waiting on baby wipes, that's about two episodes of "Bluey.")

Americans have harbored their suspicions about delivery drones zipping around overhead (some have even shot at them, which is a felony). Woodworth said Wing does demos to get communities more comfortable with the idea.

"The immediate reaction is that negative one," he said. "But over time, the questions go from the negative to 'Okay, well, when is it going to come to my house?'"

• Walmart says tariffs remain "too high," even after recent reductions.
• The company said it would have to raise some prices if import costs didn't come down further.
• It's not yet clear how already-pressured shoppers would respond to price hikes.

President Donald Trump's shifting trade policy is causing headaches for America's largest retailer.

While Walmart CFO John David Rainey welcomed the recent reduction in tariffs, he said the company was not out of the woods yet.

"Let me emphasize, we still think that's too high," he said of the latest rates during Walmart's earnings call on Thursday.

Walmart says it imports about one-third of what it sells in the US from other countries, namely China, Mexico, Canada, Vietnam, and India, and that cargo is flowing.

"There are certain items, certain categories of merchandise, that we're dependent upon to import from other countries, and prices of those things are likely going to go up, and that's not good for consumers," Rainey said.

Rainey added that shoppers were showing signs of being more financially pressured, evidenced by their spending shifting away from general merchandise and more toward food and essentials.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon added that he didn't think shoppers would tolerate additional price hikes on their grocery bills, which would limit the retailer's ability to shift import costs to other goods in its assortment.

"The first thing that goes through my mind is food inflation," he said. "We've been through a number of years here where prices have gone up on food, and our customers have felt that, and they don't want any more food inflation."

He also said he was hopeful that any long-term policy would address foods that the US doesn't produce in significant amounts, like bananas.

An additional wrinkle for Walmart management is the question of what economists call "price elasticity," or the change in purchasing patterns in response to changes in cost.

American consumers proved resilient during recent years of high inflation and kept on spending even though prices were climbing.

But Rainey said tariffs make it "more challenging to anticipate demand by item," since it's not clear how shoppers would respond to new tariff-related price hikes and retailers are wary of getting stuck holding large amounts of expensive merchandise.

"We'll watch where our price gaps are," McMillon said, "but we'll also watch what customers are telling us and the response that we get from pressure that they're feeling."

While that puzzle is a little more solvable with high-turnover items like food, it's considerably more difficult to predict for seasonal sales events like back-to-school shopping or the holidays — and Walmart has to place those orders now.

And thanks to a quirk of retail accounting, a significant fluctuation in shelf prices could have an outsize impact on the company's financial results in the coming quarters if it has to make large adjustments to its inventory valuation.

"How do you make a quantity call, and what tariff number do you use?" McMillon said.

• A US labor judge has decided against Costco in a matter involving worker confidentiality agreements.
• The case involves a worker who had to agree not to discuss an internal sexual harassment investigation.
• The NLRB argued that Costco's policy "appears to instead protect the harasser."

Costco's policies surrounding internal investigations are under scrutiny for being "overly broad" and in violation of employees' rights.

On Monday, US National Labor Relations Board judge Andrew Gollin decided against Costco in a matter involving the confidentiality agreements that workers are expected to sign when raising issues with management.

The specific case was brought on behalf of Jessica Georg, who in 2022 used Costco's "Open Door" policy to file an internal complaint that she was sexually harassed by a co-worker, according to filings.

As part of the process, Georg was required to sign a confidentiality agreement that barred her from discussing the open matter with coworkers. She later received a letter from Costco that said the employee was fired, the case was closed, and that "we hope and expect" that the information would continue to remain confidential, according to filings.

The NLRB and Georg each declined to comment for this story, and neither Costco nor its attorney responded to Business Insider's request.

In a briefing, Costco's lawyer Paul Galligan argued that the confidentiality rules are intended to protect the integrity of the investigation and are in the shared interest of the company and workers.

"It helps employees to be candid in their statements knowing that their statements will be treated confidentiality. It is probably more critical in an industry like retail where employees work closely together," Galligan said.

He also said in the briefing the rules aren't intended to dissuade employees from discussing things like wages, working conditions, or forming a union.

But Costco's investigation found that the individual about whom Georg complained also had several prior complaints filed against him, and Georg later testified she felt she or her coworkers with similar experiences felt they might be risking their jobs if they shared information about alleged patterns of behavior by an individual employee about whom they had raised concerns.

A more tailored confidentiality agreement could still protect sensitive information while still assuring workers of their rights to protect themselves against harassment, the NLRB attorneys said in a brief.

The NLRB attorneys argued that Costco's policy "appears to instead protect the harasser who has had individual complaints dismissed over and over, because no one outside the investigator is privy to the serial nature of the harassment."

Costco's lawyer argued that the company's employee handbook explains that the confidentiality requirement is not intended to discourage workers from exercising their rights. The NLRB argued, and the judge agreed, that having workers sign a separate form (as was the case here) could reasonably cause confusion for a typical worker and lead them to fear for their job.

Part of Judge Gollin's proposed remedy is that Costco post a notice in the one warehouse where the violation occurred, since the NLRB did not prove conclusively that similar confidentiality forms were used at all of the company's US locations.

The case now heads to the NLRB's board, with exceptions to the decision due by June 2.

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