Adidas has confirmed job cuts within its technology organisation in India, triggering uncertainty at its Gurugram engineering hub. While initial reports suggested more than 350 employees could be affected, the sportswear major says the restructuring impacts less than 20% of its India Technology organisation. The cuts come at an unusual moment: Adidas is reporting record sales, raising a larger question about why profitable global companies are continuing to reduce technology roles.
Adidas India Layoffs 2026: What Happened in Gurugram?
For employees at Adidas’s technology operations in Gurugram, September 15 was not an ordinary working day.
Staff were called into a town hall where a restructuring of the company’s India technology organisation was communicated. According to people familiar with the process cited in initial reports, some employees received exit letters that day. Another set of employees was reportedly told to remain until December 15, complete handovers and explore alternative positions within Adidas before their existing roles disappear.
The development quickly turned into one of India’s most closely watched corporate layoff stories this week, particularly because software engineers, data scientists and data engineers are among the roles reported to be affected.
But there is an important complication.
Adidas has confirmed the restructuring. It has not confirmed that 350 employees are being laid off.
In a statement reported by Reuters, the German sportswear company said the impact represents “less than 20% of our India Technology organization.” Adidas did not provide an exact headcount. Reuters also noted that the company’s website showed nearly 650 people working across its Gurugram and Chennai hubs.
That leaves a significant gap between the company's description and some of the first reports of the layoffs.
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Are 350 Adidas Employees Really Being Laid Off?
The figure of approximately 350 employees originated from reporting based on people familiar with the developments at the Gurugram hub.
Wocult reported that an estimated 350 or more employees could be affected out of a workforce said to be around 700, potentially representing 45-50% of that particular hub. The publication said software engineers, data scientists and data engineers were among the impacted categories. It also explicitly noted that it had not independently verified the number and that Adidas had not confirmed the scale.
The figure was subsequently carried by several Indian publications, including The Economic Times, Business Standard, Business Today and others.
Adidas's later clarification, however, says the changes affect less than 20% of its broader India Technology organisation.
The two sets of numbers cannot yet be cleanly reconciled from information publicly available.
Therefore, the most accurate description as of September 17 is this: Adidas has confirmed technology job cuts in India, but the frequently cited figure of 350-plus affected employees remains unverified by the company.
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Why Is Adidas Cutting Technology Jobs in India?
Adidas describes the move as an organisational restructuring rather than simply a conventional cost-cutting exercise.
The company says it is adjusting its operating model to match changing business requirements, simplifying parts of the organisation and concentrating resources around capabilities that it considers strategically important.
In its statement, Adidas said the changes were designed to “simplify parts of our organization” and strengthen critical capabilities as both business and technology continue to evolve.
That corporate language matters because this is not occurring against the backdrop of a collapsing Adidas business.
Adidas Is Cutting Jobs Despite Record Sales — Why?
Adidas reported record second-quarter net sales of €6.74 billion in 2026, with currency-neutral revenue rising 14% year-on-year.
Operating profit increased 5% to €574 million, despite sharply higher marketing spending linked partly to FIFA World Cup campaigns.
For the first half of 2026, net sales reached €13.34 billion, while operating profit increased 11% to €1.28 billion. The company also raised its full-year currency-neutral revenue-growth guidance to between 9% and 10%.
The numbers make one point clear: the India layoffs cannot simply be explained as the response of a company whose sales are falling sharply or whose core business is in financial distress.
Instead, they appear to fit a broader Adidas effort to reshape how the organisation is structured and how responsibilities are distributed.
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Which Adidas Employees and Roles Are Affected?
Adidas has been simplifying its organisational structure under chief executive Bjørn Gulden for some time.
In January 2025, Reuters reported plans to eliminate as many as 500 positions at the company's headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany. At the time, Adidas said its corporate structure had become too complex for a rapidly changing market. Gulden had also been shifting greater responsibility away from headquarters and towards individual markets.
A few months later, Gulden said much of that headquarters restructuring had already been completed. He spoke of organisational setups where certain functions had effectively been duplicated or even triplicated.
Viewed against that background, the India development looks less like an isolated shock and more like another stage in a wider organisational redesign.
What Happens to Affected Employees Now?
According to the initial reporting, there are broadly two reported categories of affected workers.
Some employees reportedly received exit letters on September 15.
A second group has reportedly been asked to remain with Adidas until December 15, 2026, during which time employees are expected to help transfer responsibilities to colleagues at other technology hubs while also exploring internal opportunities.
Employees in that group who are unable to secure another position within Adidas by December 15 have reportedly been told that the date will become their last working day.
This suggests that at least part of the restructuring involves redistribution of work rather than the outright disappearance of every function involved.
However, several important details remain unanswered.
Adidas has not publicly disclosed the exact severance terms, notice-pay arrangements, number of employees who can be redeployed internally, or the detailed criteria used to identify affected positions. Initial reports have also been unable to confirm the exact transition package.
What Are Adidas Employees Saying About the Layoffs?
Publicly verifiable first-hand accounts from employees directly affected by the cuts remain limited, and there has so far been no widely reported collective employee or union statement.
But discussion across professional and technology communities has been intense.
On LinkedIn, former Adidas employee Shivam Jha described the development as “difficult news to see” while expressing support for affected colleagues. Wocult's reporting has also appealed to impacted employees to share their experiences confidentially.
On Reddit communities focused on Gurugram and Indian developers, the news prompted expressions of shock and anxiety, with users discussing job security, family financial obligations and the vulnerability of technology roles. Others began offering referrals to professionals who might be affected.
Those posts should be treated as anecdotal public reaction rather than verified accounts of Adidas's internal decision-making.
Still, they illustrate the broader anxiety surrounding large-scale restructuring in India's technology workforce: even employees working at globally successful companies increasingly see strong corporate financial performance as no guarantee that their particular role will survive an organisational redesign.
What Happens Next?
The next major date is December 15, 2026.
Employees in the reported transition group are expected to continue working until then while handing over responsibilities and pursuing alternative internal positions.
Attention will also remain on whether Adidas provides further clarification about the actual headcount.
The discrepancy is too large to ignore. Initial reports place the possible impact around 350 employees at Gurugram, while Adidas says less than 20% of its India Technology organisation is affected. Reuters reported that the company's website showed nearly 650 employees across its Gurugram and Chennai hubs.
Until Adidas publishes a precise number or explains the difference in the populations being counted, presenting “350 layoffs” as a confirmed company figure would be premature.