Airbnb has laid off 1,900 staff out of a global total of 7,500. The decision was made public in an open letter by the co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. Where he acknowledged that decisions on layoffs were never “off the table” and the redundancy measure had to be taken as “Airbnb’s business has been hit hard, with revenue this year forecasted to be less than half of what we earned in 2019”.  

Despite raising US$2 billion in the capital and dramatically cutting costs across the company, Chesky said the uncertainty around when travel will return and how travel will be when it does return – had made it necessary for the layoffs.

“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 justified.

Affected staff in the U.S. will receive 14 weeks of base pay, plus one additional week for every year at Airbnb. Tenure will be rounded to the nearest year. Outside the US, the affected employees will receive at least 14 weeks of pay, plus tenure increases consistent with their country-specific practices.

Along with the layoffs, Airbnb plans to reduce its investment in activities that do not directly support the core of its host community like in the operations on transportation and Airbnb Studios which will be suspended while investments in hotels and Lux will be scaled back.

Chesky explained that with employees across 24 countries that have their own laws and practices around employment, further information around the layoff would not be immediately available.