Skyscanner announces job losses and office closures
Skyscanner has announced it plans to cut around 20 per cent of its workforce worldwide, affecting up to 84 jobs in Edinburgh.
The tech firm, which has been hit hard by the slowdown in travel and tourism caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, said they now plan to centralise their marketing teams and consolidate their office footprint.
Earlier in the year, the company had frozen all but essential hiring and had reduced spend and budgets across all departments, as well as implementing a voluntary change in working patterns, in a bid to tackle the slowdown.
A spokesperson said 20 per cent of staff will lose their jobs with two offices in Hungary and Bulgaria, likely to shut.
The job losses will affect around 300 of the 1,500 staff at the company world-wide.
In Edinburgh, the home of the company and its base since 2003, 84 jobs could be lost with the exact number subject to consultation. The office in Quartermile is not likely to close.
The total is around 8 per cent of the company’s total workforce, but new roles will be created as part of the process and priority will be given to employees as an alternative to redundancy.
In addition to this, 60 students due to join the company via its graduate scheme – one of the tech world’s leading and best paid schemes for new entrants to the job market – have been told the programme has been retracted.
The company said the impact on the UK side of the business will be “less” than others.
A spokesperson told The Scotsman: “While we’re confident of Skyscanner’s recovery in the long-term, the impact of Covid-19 means there is still uncertainty on how much time it will take for travel to recover and what this might look like.
“Our graduate recruitment plans are made up to a year in advance and we offered these roles with sincere intent, prior to Covid-19 impacting the business.
“We highly value our grads and are very sorry that without a clear picture as to when travel will return to normal, we now have to propose further changes.
“Regrettably, these include the proposed retraction of this year’s grad programme, alongside streamlining and centralising our wider workforce. This is a step we had hoped never to have to take.
“This is a hard time for our people and teams, so throughout this process our priority as it always is - will be to treat everyone with empathy, care and respect. We’ll be working to make sure we support them as much as we can.”
Skyscanner was founded in 2003 in Edinburgh with the Capital home to the company’s headquarters since the beginning.
Founded by Gareth Williams, Barry Smith, and Bonamy Grimes, the travel tech firm was sold to Chinese firm Ctrip, now Trip.com Group, in 2016 in a deal which valued the company at £1.4 billion, making it the largest tech travel deal in Europe.
It was also Scotland’s first “unicorn” company before the purchase by Ctrip – referring to a privately held company which is worth more than £1bn.
The site compares flight, car rental and hotel prices for customers and hit 100 million monthly users in 2019.