Party City, North America's biggest party goods supplier, plans to cut 19% of its corporate workforce, financially bracing itself as its core customer base faces what it called "significant" inflation.

The Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based company, which has 761 stores, in its third-quarter earnings report Tuesday said the layoffs will be part of a $30 million cost-cutting drive. That belt-tightening follows after the retailer suffered a 1.6% decrease in net sales, to $502.2 million, and flat sales in October, which included the Halloween holiday.

CEO Brad Preston told Wall Street analysts that while overall Halloween sales were up year over year, they came in at the lower end of Party City's goals as "macro pressures impacted customers’ ability and willingness to increase spend on Halloween celebrations."

In an investor presentation, Party City said, "Flat October results and positive Halloween performance, while encouraging given the current backdrop, fell short of our original expectations."

In recent third-quarter earnings reports, retailers are saying that shoppers are becoming more cost sensitive because of rising prices and inflation. But a number of them still expressed optimism about the holiday season, and the National Retail Federation has forecast that retail sales will rise 6% to 8% year over year despite the economic challenges.

In a statement, Weston said Party City expects "the current macro backdrop to persist" and is taking steps to position the business for the long term.

"We are focused on $30 million of savings, with work already underway to deliver this target in 2023, including a corporate workforce reduction of 19% through a combination of position eliminations and not back-filling a significant number of open positions," the CEO said.

He didn't specify how many jobs would be lost, and Party City didn't immediately respond to an email or phone call asking how many employees will be let go.

Party City also reduced its full-year 2022 guidance on Tuesday, to net sales of $2.14 billion to $2.19 billion or a change of roughly minus 1% to 1% compared with 2021

In its investor presentation, the retailer also said it plans to evolve its Halloween City pop-up store channel "to drive growth and market share." The company operated 149 Halloween City pop-up stores compared with 90 last year, a mere fraction of the 1,500 stores that rival Spirit Halloween opened nationwide. In its Halloween survey, the NRF found that Halloween specialty stores and costume shops were the top choice for consumers to buy their spooky apparel and holiday-related merchandise this year.

For fiscal October, the five-week period ending Nov. 5, Party City reported total revenue of $419.4 million, or 1.1% above the same period of last year. Retail revenue increased roughly 4%. Comparable sales were flat, "driven by strength in Halloween sales, offset by a decline in core non-seasonal categories," according to Party City.