Walmart is cutting jobs from an e-commerce incubator in Flatiron, Manhattan, including from Allswell - Crain's New York Business

Walmart's shakeup of its e-commerce operations will cost more New Yorkers their jobs.

The retail behemoth filed a notice with the state Labor Department that it will lay off 29 people from its 56-person office in Flatiron District by April 24. The office, at 54 W. 21st St., is home to part of the company's e-commerce division, including an incubator that develops new brands in health, beauty, wellness and home furnishings, according to the notice.

A Walmart spokeswoman said the company is "integrating many of these (incubator) brands as private brands within Walmart as we continue to deepen our category expertise and strengthen our ability to offer customers a larger range of products."

Some of the layoffs will be at Allswell, the online mattress brand Walmart launched in 2018. The brand is Walmart's answer to Casper Sleep, a company that is pursuing a public offering. Casper officials said this week the startup would seek a $744 million valuation through its IPO, down almost a third from its most recent private valuation of $1.1 billion.

The layoffs, first reported by Business Insider, come a month after the leader of Walmart's e-commerce strategy left the company. Walmart has reportedly been overhauling parts of its online sales approach since.

Those efforts include integrating the Jet.com brand more directly into the wider Walmart portfolio. In that process, Walmart abandoned grocery delivery in New York and, in December, laid off 160 people at a warehouse it had leased in the Bronx just a year earlier.

In October, Walmart laid off about 30 Manhattan employees at Bonobos, the men's apparel retailer the company acquired for $310 million in 2017.

The New York City market has long been a tricky one for Walmart. There are 5,358 Walmart in the U.S. and 110 in New York, but zero within the five boroughs.

While competitors Target and Amazon have steadily expanded their portfolios in New York City, the Arkansas-based Walmart has been repelled in each of its attempts to open here over the past two decades.

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