Airbnb lays off 30% of hired workforce: report

Home rental firm Airbnb is laying off 30 percent of its hiring staff this week, according to a report. Bloomberg, The job cuts affected 0.4 per cent of the company’s total 6,800 employees. A spokesperson for the company told the outlet, “We have become a leaner and more focused company over the past three years. The company expects to grow its workforce this year.”

The spokesperson said the company “has made the difficult decision to reorganize and reduce the size of our recruiting team to reflect our hiring projections.”

Airbnb said this is not a sign of more widespread layoffs. The company predicted workforce growth in 2023 in the range of 2 percent to 4 percent, in contrast to the 11 percent growth it experienced last year. Airbnb also plans to expand its overall headcount this year.

While many of its competitors have lowered their growth projections due to rising lending rates and industry-wide downturns, Airbnb has been one of the few IT companies to avoid major layoffs. Meanwhile, the travel industry has remained mostly resilient as travel demand surged after the pandemic.

Read also: Google Now removes garbage robot amid layoffs: report

Last month, the company reported its first annual profit, with revenue rising as travel bookings surged in the last three months of 2022. The home-rental platform said it made a profit of $319 million in the last quarter of last year on revenue of nearly $2 billion.

According to the San Francisco-based corporation, they will end 2022 with net income of $1.9 billion, compared to a decrease of $352 million from the previous year.

During the pandemic, Airbnb laid off 25 percent of its workforce, or about 1,900 employees. The decision was taken after the rental major almost ceased operations due to global constraints due to COVID-19. The company’s CEO Brian Chesky said in a blog post at the time that “global travel has come to a standstill” as the Covid-19 induced crisis unfolded.