Colorado’s Vail Mountain. Photo: Shutterstock
Vail Resorts announced in September 2024 that it would soon undergo a “two-year transformation plan” as a step toward its new phase of “growth and global expansion.” On April 2, 64 employees in various Human Resources roles in Broomfield, Colorado were told their jobs will be the first of the company’s layoffs executed as a part of that plan. A Notice of Operating Unit Closure was submitted to the office, stating that the entire operating unit will be shut down on June 2, 2025.
Vail called the plan a “two-year Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan” in a press release in September, stating it would lay off 14 percent of its corporate workforce in accounts receivable, payroll, and IT positions that would instead be outsourced or consolidated. The company says the restructuring will save $100 million as it prepares for international acquisitions. Vail Resorts currently owns and operates 42 ski resorts across North America and Australia, as well as hospitality, retail, and rental operations.
“The company plans to consolidate and outsource its internal business services and call centers into best-in-class global shared services to support its North American businesses while creating a scalable model that can expand for future global expansion support. In addition to its 37 North American mountain resorts, the company owns and operates three mountain resorts in Australia – and over the past two years has expanded into Europe, with the purchase of Andermatt-Sedrun and Crans-Montana Mountain Resort in Switzerland,” the company wrote in the 2024 release.
Vail Resorts CEO Kirsten Lynch added, “We saw that we needed to head in this direction to enable future growth and even to enable the global expansion that we aspire to. So really getting our operations, a global shared service model and expanding our workforce management, puts us in a situation where we can scale and get operating leverage as we expand further into Europe or grow the company.”
According to the 2024 press release, the remaining planned layoffs by Vail Resorts impact less than two percent of its operational workforce. In total, the company employed more than 7,000 year-round employees and 45,000 seasonal employees when the two-year plan was announced.
