As declines mount, Pabst cuts senior employees in sweeping layoff

Editor’s note: This is a developing story and will be updated periodically with new information. If you have tips about what’s going on at Pabst, please get in touch by emailing me ([email protected]) or texting me on Signal (dinfontay.11). Anonymity available.—Dave.

Late last week, Pabst Brewing Company laid off dozens of employees as it struggles to offset declining sales across its portfolio and a flat Pabst Light rollout earlier this year, sources told Fingers. The cuts come six months after a previous purge at the country’s fifth-largest macrobrewer; taken together, two former Pabst employees estimated between a third and a half of the overall workforce has been laid off.

Meanwhile, the company is quietly looking for a subletter to take over its headquarters in San Antonio. A listing I reviewed for the sleek space—into which Pabst just moved in 2023—was last updated just two days before the pink slips started flying this past Thursday. Between the layoffs, the listing, and a whole lot of reshuffling in Pabst’s c-suite (including the replacement of both chief executive and chief financial officers earlier this year, and the exit of a former chief sales officer just last month), former Pabst employees I spoke with fear the legacy firm might be on the brink.

“Some of us in the office got wind of this before we received our notices and started to put puzzle pieces together that perhaps is in dire financial straits,” one former Pabst employee, who was laid off on Friday morning, told Fingers by text on Saturday evening. “Overall, the company is going to be limping into the new year with heavier workloads spread across a small number of employees.” The total number of employees laid off last week was between 60 and 70, according to estimates from my sources who were previously employed by the firm.

Fingers needs your support to do more independent journalism.