Layoffs At Airbnb: 30% Of Recruiting Employees Sacked Despite A Surge In Profit

The decision of firing staff has affected less than 0.4% of the company's total workforce of about 6,800, Bloomberg news agency reported.

The report has come as a shock for many as in February this year, the San Francisco-based firm said it is planning to expand its overall headcount in 2023.

Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky said late last year that the state of the economy won’t affect how the business is run. Chief Financial Officer Dave Stephenson said on the company’s latest earnings call that it still sees room to hire.

“We’re going to continue to grow, but we’re going to grow modestly," Stephenson said last month. He said he expects headcount growth of 2% to 4% this year, compared with 11% growth last year.

The home-sharing company made painful choices around layoffs during the Covid-19 pandemic when the company fired 25% of staff.

Meanwhile, Alphabet Inc's self-driving technology unit, Waymo, laid off 137 employees, in its second round of job cuts on Friday.

The job cuts at Waymo are part of wider layoffs across the auto and tech industry, including at Rivian Automotive Inc, General Motors Co Twitter Inc, and Meta Platforms Inc.

Waymo has eliminated some engineering roles as part of the cuts to "focus on commercial success". So far Waymo has now cut a total of 209 jobs this year.

Alphabet said in January it would slash 12,000 jobs, which would affect a large number of employees who support experimental projects. Its health science unit, Verily Life Sciences, said in January it had laid off over 200 employees, or about 15% of its workforce.

Last month Twitter laid off at least 200 employees or about 10% of its workforce.

The company has a headcount of about 2,300 active employees, according to Elon Musk last month.

In November last year, the social media platform laid off about 3,700 employees in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, who had acquired the company for $44 billion.