BOSTON — Wayfair announced Thursday that it is laying off 550 employees, but none of those workers is based at the company's sales and service center in Pittsfield that opened in October.
"The changes do not impact our customer service team or plans in Pittsfield," Wayfair spokeswoman Molly Delaney said in a statement.
Of those 550 employees, 350 are based in Boston, where Wayfair is headquartered. The online seller of home furnishings employs 6,000 workers at its Boston office in Copley Square and 17,000 worldwide.
The organizational changes announced Thursday affect about 3 percent of Wayfair's global workforce, Delaney said.
"To position the organization to take advantage of the opportunity ahead, we continually evaluate the needs of the business and work to increase efficiencies while aligning our teams with the initiatives that drive the greatest impact for our customers," Delaney said.
"We are continuing to hire for the many roles needed to drive our long-term success and the continued growth of the business. We remain as confident as ever in Wayfair's future and our steadfast focus on delighting our customers with the best experience for home."
An email to employees that was obtained by The Boston Globe cited Wayfair's need to "tighten our focus and increase efficiencies."
Wayfair's co-founder, CEO Niraj Shah, was born in Pittsfield, grew up in the city and graduated from Pittsfield High School in 1991. He co-founded the company in 2002.
In December 2018, Wayfair announced that it planned to open a sales and service center in Pittsfield that would bring 300 jobs to the Berkshires within three years. The establishment of the local sales and service center is part of a larger company initiative that was expected to bring 3,000 additional jobs to Boston. Wayfair received a $31.4 million tax break from the Massachusetts Economic Coordinating Council, one of the largest tax breaks ever awarded by the council, to execute the entire initiative.