At least 38 Airbnb employees laid off in Singapore as part of global retrenchment

AIRBNB has laid off at least 38 staff in Singapore as part of its move to slash 1,900 employees, or a quarter of its workforce globally, according to a talent portal the company set up for affected staff.

The portal lists the names and LinkedIn profiles of the retrenched employees on an opt-in basis, categorised by location. Affected Singapore employees include executives in customer service, sales, marketing, IT, design and business development roles.

In July last year, Airbnb told The Business Times that its Singapore headcount stands at about 300. Assuming this has not changed, the latest layoffs would represent about 12.7 per cent of its workforce in the Republic.

Airbnb announced the layoffs back on May 5. In a memo to staff, chief executive Brian Chesky said the company needed to rethink its path forward due to the impact of Covid-19 on the global travel market.

"While we know Airbnb's business will fully recover, the changes it will undergo are not temporary or short-lived. Because of this, we need to make more fundamental changes to Airbnb by reducing the size of our workforce around a more focused business strategy," he said in the memo.

Laid-off Airbnb employees who are based outside of the US will receive at least 14 weeks of pay, in addition to tenure increases in line with their specific market's practices.

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Airbnb also dropped the one-year cliff on equity for everyone it hired in the past year. All laid-off employees will be eligible for the May 25 vesting date.