Booking.com to cut some 4,000 jobs; Consequences for Dutch workers unclear

Booking.com announced that it has to cut about a quarter of its worldwide jobs due to the coronavirus crisis. That means that some 4 thousand to 5 thousand of the total 17,500 jobs will disappear. It was unclear what the plan was for the six thousand people working for Booking.com in Amsterdam.

"Unfortunately, due to the corona crisis, like many other travel organizations we have to take the very difficult step of shrinking our global workforce with the intention that this will affect up to 25 percent of the global workforce," a spokesperson for Booking.com said to NOS. The company saw bookings fall by 85 percent in April.

The American accommodation booking site is one of the largest employers in Amsterdam. Around 6 thousand people work at the Booking.com head office and ten other offices in the Dutch capital. The spokesperson could not tell NOS how the layoffs would affect its Dutch workers.

Booking.com made use of the government's NOW regulation and received 64.5 million euros in subsidy so it could continue to pay its workers in the Netherlands. The spokesperson told NOS that without this NOW regulation, the number of employees affected by this reorganization would be much higher.