Skyscanner to cut Singapore marketing headcount amid global layoffs

TRAVEL-booking firm Skyscanner is set to downsize its marketing division in Singapore, as it plans to centralise its marketing division in the United Kingdom amid global layoffs, a company spokesperson told The Business Times (BT). It has not made any decision on whether to downsize its office space here.

"We cannot at this stage detail who and numbers of marketing team changes, because we need to follow the local collective consultation process," the spokesperson said. The company is also still unable to comment on changes to its other business functions in Singapore, but the spokesperson said that not all functions may be affected.

Social networking site LinkedIn lists over 120 Skyscanner employees in Singapore, in roles ranging from marketing and talent acquisition to advertising, commercial operations, partnerships, software engineering and data analytics. Back in 2013, it had a headcount of just 30 staff in Singapore, but this number has since boomed as Singapore was the company's Asia-Pacific headquarters.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Skyscanner is preparing to retrench about a fifth of its some 1,500 employees globally. The firm, owned by China's Trip.com, has been hit hard by the pause in global travel amid the Covid-19 pandemic. (see amendment note)

Citing an internal e-mail from chief executive Moshe Rafiah, the report said that Skyscanner will also close its Sofia and Budapest offices. It will also downsize its Miami headcount and look for a smaller office space in that market.

Skyscanner's spokesperson told BT: "The current environment means we need to reduce the numbers of smaller, fragmented teams and optimise for co-location and maximise time-zone efficiencies. Doing this will also enable our marketing team to work even more closely with co-located product, engineering and commercial counterparts."

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The majority of employees will be given enhanced redundancy pay, outplacement support, time off for internal and external interviews and enhanced support through the company's employee assistance programme, she added.

Founded in 2003 in Ediburgh, UK, Skyscanner was in 2015 bought by Trip.com for US$1.7 billion. Available in over 30 languages, the service has more than 70 million app downloads and more than 1,200 global partners, says a company factsheet.

Amendment note: The original version of this article wrongly stated the number of employees to be retrenched globally as 1,500.