One of San Francisco's highest-profile, signature employers, Gap Inc., is once again shrinking its employee rolls, with many jobs getting cut at their Embarcadero headquarters.

As the SF Business Times reports, Gap Inc. confirmed in a regulatory filing Thursday that it intends to slash 1,800 jobs, "concentrated primarily in upper field roles and at its San Francisco headquarters."

This follows a round of 500 layoffs last fall, which were concentrated at the company's corporate offices in SF and New York.

"We’ve let our operating costs increase at a faster rate than our sales, and in turn our profitability," said executive chairman and interim CEO Bob Martin at the time.

With these layoffs, the company says it trying to streamline how decisions get made within the company, as well as cut costs.

"We are taking the necessary actions to reshape Gap Inc. for the future – simplifying and optimizing our operating model, elevating creativity, and driving better delivery in every dimension of the customer experience," Martin said in a statement. "As we move forward, we believe these efforts will release untapped potential across our brands, allowing us to show up as a more customer focused, faster, and creative company."

Martin added, "I represent the collective voice of the company in expressing a sincere appreciation to every employee for the dedication, energy, and heart they have given to Gap Inc."

These layoffs will bring Gap's total headcount down to around 6,400 — with its reported total number of employees as of January 2022 at 8,700, this reflects more than a 25% reduction in its workforce in the last eight months.

In recent years, Gap has shuttered at least 800 of its retail stores around the country and the world, and in 2017 it made the move to convert around 200 under-performing Gap locations to Old Navy or Athleta stores. The Old Navy brand reportedly accounts for half of Gap Inc.'s revenue these days.

And in the most dramatic sign of changing times for Gap, the company closed its longtime flagship store at Powell and Market in 2020.

2022 saw Gap's stock price tank, and after a dip from early pandemic shopping, revenue at Old Navy dipped significantly as well. Gap's stock price was up 1.5% Thursday on the news of the layoff, hovering around $9.50 per share. This is down significantly from stock-price highs in both mid-2018 and mid-2021 when Gap's stock was trading at well over $30 per share.

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