Home Depot cuts 800 corporate roles, mandates five-day in-office work

Home Depot announced it is eliminating 800 corporate positions and will require corporate employees to return to the office five days per week, with the in-office policy set to begin the week of April 6, CNBC and National Today reported. National Today said affected employees “will stop working immediately, with their official termination date set for March 31,” and that separation packages and transitional benefits will be provided.

About 150 of the roles were based at Home Depot’s Vinings/Atlanta support center, with the remainder in remote positions, CNBC reported. The company confirmed most cuts were concentrated in its technology organization, with some reductions on other corporate teams, a corporate spokesperson told CNBC.

In a memo cited by CNBC, CEO Ted Decker framed the return-to-office and job cuts as strategic. “To extend our industry-leading position, we must position the company to move faster and stay even more closely connected to our customers and frontline associates,” Decker wrote, saying the moves are intended to increase the company’s “speed and agility” and are “essential to simplify our business and focus our energy on the priorities ahead.”

Home Depot senior director of real estate Jim McCarthy updated the Development Authority of Cobb County on March 3, 2026 and described the workforce reduction as “a — I would say small, but to the people affected, big — reduction.” McCarthy told the Development Authority that the timing was not perfect but that the cuts “allow us to be much more agile and focused on a little bit of a changing home improvement industry and our approach to it.”

McCarthy also reported a pilot return-to-office event, saying “between 5,000 and 6,000 employees returned to the office Friday” and that those employees “are going to have these five or 6,000 people coming back to the office every Friday and being part of the community here on Fridays that we haven't been since March 18th of 2020.” He added, “I'm probably one of the few people that's actually interested in coming back to the office on Friday. But I think it's great for our young folks.”

Despite the layoffs and the new in-office mandate, McCarthy told the Development Authority that Home Depot remains on track with its Vinings headquarters expansion and local hiring commitments. MDJ reported the company said it still plans to create an additional 250 jobs in Cobb County and to build a 48,000-square-foot expansion of its Little Apron Academy child care center along with a nine-story parking deck of about 900 spaces.

National Today’s coverage included a January 29 publication date and specific language about termination timing and job-placement support; CNBC did not repeat the March 31 termination date in its excerpts but confirmed the April 6 start for the five-day policy. The five-day return and the simultaneous local expansion underscore a rapid operational shift at Home Depot aimed at consolidating corporate presence while restructuring its tech and corporate workforce.