Laid off from Petco.

What Petco layoffs have meant for employees

Petco's totals for its 2017 and 2023 cuts included jobs nobody held. In January 2017 the company described "the elimination of 180 open and existing positions across the company," Times of San Diego reported, and on its August 2023 earnings call it described cutting corporate and field leadership headcount "including the closure of open roles." That cut was part of a cost program aimed at $150 million in yearly savings by the end of fiscal 2025, which its quarterly release said would come from merchandise, supply chain and general and administrative costs. Because neither statement split the empty roles from the filled ones, neither total tells you how many colleagues lost a job. The 2017 announcement also came a day after Petco said it planned to open 71 new stores, the same report noted. Should an interviewer ask about a 2017 or 2023 Petco layoff, you can explain the layoff with the company's stated reason, consolidating functions in 2017 and, in 2023, matching the workforce to "the capability needed to support our long-term strategy," in Ron Coughlin's words, actions he said would leave Petco "a leaner and more effective organization."

Petco has described its store closings as real estate decisions. When it confirmed that its Mankato, Minnesota store would close on January 20, 2024, it told Southern Minnesota News it was "constantly evaluating our real estate portfolio" and would offer workers "transition support." In September 2025 it told CoStar it had been "optimizing our fleet of more than 1,500 stores across the U.S., Mexico, and Puerto Rico," and the same report cited Fast Company's list of closed locations in Washington, D.C., Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon and Pennsylvania. Minnesota's rapid-response report gave its best guess for Petco's Brooklyn Park closing, 18 affected workers from November 20, 2024, and marked the closing NO in its WARN Act column.

In Rhinelander, the closing date Petco announced and the last days it described were two separate things. It named February 12, 2019 for closing Drs. Foster and Smith, but the effective date on the state notice was March 10, by the copy in our WARN tracker, while its statement to WXPR said last days would vary over 60 to 120 days, which put some of them in the spring. Petco said it had already notified all of the affected employees when it announced the closing, and the outplacement programs it planned with local officials were to start in February, before the first of those last days. If Petco announces a closing that includes your job and gives you a separation date, you can plan around that date as well as the closing date.

As of its annual report for fiscal 2025, a year that closed January 31, 2026, Petco says no partner, its word for an employee, had a union or a bargaining agreement behind them, after a small number of union campaigns that didn't succeed. Its 2019 statement said everyone the Rhinelander closing affected would receive severance and transition support, and WXPR counted part-time staff among the business's employees. If Petco hands over a separation agreement, you can try negotiating its terms before signing.

Petco's fiscal years end around the start of February, not with the calendar year. The same annual report closes fiscal 2024 on February 1, 2025 and fiscal 2025 on January 31, 2026, so its year-end store counts are taken on those dates and its severance totals cover those two fiscal years.

Former support center staff in San Diego and former Rhinelander employees can start with unemployment benefits in California or in Wisconsin, and people from stores anywhere else with the benefits in each state.