Estée Lauder, with a big presence in Suffolk, to cut up to 7,000 jobs worldwide

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc., a major employer in Suffolk County, has increased the number of employees that it plans to lay off across the globe to up to 7,000 as cosmetics sales slump in Asia, executives announced Tuesday.

The maker of MAC, Clinique, Jo Malone, Bumble, Aveda and other beauty products has already laid off about 3,000 workers worldwide since unveiling a job-cutting plan one year ago. It had 62,000 employees as of June 30, according to a securities filing.

In Suffolk, Estée Lauder had about 2,500 workers at multiple locations centered in and around Melville, Newsday reported in 2022.

The company didn’t file a layoff notice, called a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice, with the state Department of Labor last year or this year, according to the department’s online database.

An Estée Lauder spokeswoman wouldn’t provide details Tuesday about how the expanded job-cutting plan would impact the company's Suffolk operations, though she emphasized their key role.

“Melville continues to be an important business hub for our company, and our operations [there] are critical to our global growth,” the spokeswoman told Newsday. “Melville has been an important location for us, for our R&D [research and development] and our supply-chain operations, in particular.”

She added, “We remain committed to Long Island and New York.”

About 11% of Estée Lauder’s workforce would be affected if it fully implements the expanded job-cutting plan.

Estée Lauder opened its Melville factory, along the South Service Road of the Long Island Expressway, more than 50 years ago. The company has since added R&D laboratories, an engineering center and offices.

In 2022, Estée Lauder rented 40,000 square feet at Farmingdale State College’s Broad Hollow Bioscience Park for a research lab and office. Four years earlier, the company began work on a $14.5 million engineering center on Maxess Road in Melville.

Each project added about 30 jobs to Estée Lauder’s local payroll. As a result, both won tax breaks from governments.

Empire State Development, the state’s primary business-aid agency, is providing $1.2 million in tax breaks for the Farmingdale State lab and $2.2 million in tax breaks for the engineering center.

“Estée Lauder Companies serve as a critical employer and has long been an economic driver on Long Island,” agency spokeswoman Emily Mijatovic said Tuesday. “ESD has reached out to the company and will continue to monitor the situation.”

The Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency is providing about $900,000 in tax breaks over 10 years for the engineering center.

“We will do everything we can to ensure that the company continues to comply with its commitment to the IDA for the assistance we have provided,” said Kelly Murphy, the agency’s executive director.

In a conference call with stock analysts Tuesday, Estée Lauder CEO Stéphane de La Faverie said the company lost $590 million in the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with a profit of $313 million in the same period in 2023.

Sales in the second quarter totaled $4 billion, or 6% less than a year earlier. Much of the decline was attributed to weak sales in China and South Korea due to increased consumer pessimism.

“We are significantly transforming our operating model to be leaner, faster and more agile,” said de La Faverie, who became the company’s top executive last month. He also vowed to take “decisive actions to expand consumer coverage, step-change innovation and increase consumer-facing investments to better capture growth and drive profitability.”

Estée Lauder lowered its projected profit-per-share for the January-March period to between 24 cents and 34 cents, far below the 61 cents that Wall Street had been expecting, according to FactSet.

The news sent Estée Lauder’s stock tumbling on the New York Stock Exchange closing down $13.30, or 16%, to $69.47 on Tuesday.

By James T. Madore

james.madore@newsday.comJamesTMadore

James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.