Hotel booking website Booking.com is to slash its global workforce by 25%, and the implications for the company’s Amsterdam headquarters are as yet unclear.

In total, Booking.com will cut its workforce of 17,000 by up 4,375 jobs. Some 5,500 people currently work for the company in Amsterdam, spread across multiple locations. Staff were briefed on the job losses on Tuesday morning.

In May Booking.com said it would not apply for Dutch government help for a second time to cope with the coronavirus crisis but was looking for ‘long term solutions’ to deal with the significantly lower demand for travel.

The Amsterdam-based company was heavily criticised for asking for support to pay staff wages in the first round of subsidies, considering it had made a profit of $4.9bn last year. In total, the company received nearly €65m in grants to maintain jobs.

Other platform based companies, including Uber and Airbnb, have already reduced their workforces by as much as 25%. Booking.com posted a loss of almost €700m in the first quarter as booking worldwide plunged by 85%.

The company is due to publish its second quarter figures later in the day.

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