Coronavirus Layoffs: Landry’s Inc., Philly YMCA Latest To Let Workers Go Amid Pandemic

Topline: As the coronavirus pandemic wipes out markets, closes schools and colleges, suspends major conferences, sports leagues and cultural events as well as upends the travel industry, businesses losing out on cash flow have started laying off workers.

Here’s who’s axed staff so far:

Hotels

• Eden Roc Hotels, also in Miami, laid off 257 employees from its housekeeping, spa and banquet workforces.
• Workers at President Trump’s hotels—160 in Washington, D.C., 51 in New York City and an unknown number at his Las Vegas, Nevada location—were laid off.
• Marriott International, the world’s largest hotel company, said tens of thousands of hotel workers will be furloughed, and will lay off a number of those workers.
• Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, which owns 54 hotels, laid off half of its 8,000 workers and may need to cut an additional 2,000.
• MGM Resorts said it would furlough workers and begin layoffs on Monday, but immediately let some staffers go from undisclosed parts of its business.
• Over five dozen workers were laid off from West Virginia’s Oglebay Resort and Conference Center.
• Scandic, the largest hotel operator in Europe’s Nordic countries, also said it would give termination notices to 2,000 Swedish employees.
• Kimpton Hotel Aventi in Manhattan, owned by the InterContinental Hotels Group, reportedly laid off 40 employees, while the Ian Schrager-owned Public temporarily laid off an undisclosed number of workers.
• SoftBank-backed Oyo Hotels laid off 3,000 of its China employees earlier in the month, equaling 30% of its workforce there, part of a global layoff of 5,000.

Restaurants & Dining

• Trump National Doral restaurant BLT Prime in Miami, Florida, laid off 98 workers.
• Landry’s Inc., the parent company of Del Frisco’s and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. (along with the Golden Nugget casinos) had to temporarily lay off 40,000 workers.
• Bon Appetit Management Company, a retail dining employer for college campuses, laid off 140 workers from the University of Pennsylvania.
• Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group laid off 2,000 workers, which is 80% of its workforce.
• Compass Coffee, a Washington, D.C. Starbucks competitor, laid off 150 of its 189 employees—equaling 80 percent of its staff.
• Eatwell DC, a District of Columbia-based restaurant group, let go of 160 employees.
• HMSHost, a Seattle, Washington, global restaurant-services provider said it would lay off 200 people and an area corporate shuttle service would lay off 75, HuffPost reported.

Airports

Airlines & Transportation

• Scandinavian Airlines said Sunday it will temporarily lay off 10,000 employees, equal to 90% of their staff.
• Norwegian Air said that it would temporarily lay off up to 50% of its workforce, meaning 7,300 workers, and suspend 4,000 flights due to the pandemic.
• Air Canada will lay off 5,100 members of its cabin crew, about half of its current roster, as its planned flights for April have been cut by nearly 80%.
• Stena Line, a European ferry operator, announced that 950 jobs would be cut in Sweden due to a sharp decline in travel bookings.
• Canadian airline and travel company Transat AT let go of 3,600 workers, or about 70% of its workforce.

Silicon Valley & Technology

• Apartment rental startup Sonder laid off or furloughed 400 employees, equaling roughly 30% of its workforce.
• In Silicon Alley, four startups—online mattress retailer Eight Sleep, technical recruiter Triplebyte, hospitality startup The Guild, and luxury sleeper-bus service Cabin—laid off about 75 people between them.
• New York City real estate startup Compass laid off 15% of its workforce.
• Travel manager TripActions laid off 300 workers—about 25% of its staff—mostly across customer support, recruiting and sales.
• Boston-based travel startup Lola laid off 34 employees, reportedly among the first full-time tech casualties of the coronavirus crisis.

Arts & Culture

• About 300 workers across the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Normal Rockwell Museum and the Hancock Shaker Village will be out of jobs by mid-April.
• Talent agency Endeavor laid off 250 workers, with the first wave focusing on those who cannot do their jobs from home, such as groundskeepers and restaurant workers.
• The Science Museum of Minnesota temporarily laid off 400 employees.
• Bicoastal improvisational theater and school Upright Citizens Brigade laid off dozens of workers.
• Toronto-based movie theater chain Cineplex Inc. laid off thousands of part-time workers after being forced to shut its 165 locations across Canada and the U.S.
• The Houston, Texas-based Alley Theatre laid off 75% of its staff and implemented pay cuts for remaining staff.
• Montreal-based circus producer Cirque du Soleil will lay off 4,679 people—95% of its staff.
• The Metropolitan Opera, considered the U.S.’ largest performing arts organization, laid off its union employees, including its chorus singers and musicians.
• Hollywood talent agency Paradigm laid off around 100 employees and reduced payroll for the remaining 500.
• The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, IATSE, estimated that 120,000 jobs for film workers, including technicians, artisans and other crew positions have been eliminated.
• The Circuit of the Americas, an Austin, Texas-based concert, automobile racing, conference and entertainment complex, said it was laying off an undisclosed number of workers after being indefinitely closed due to coronavirus.
• Caesars Entertainment Corp. has also begun coronavirus-prompted layoffs.
• At least 50 employees of music and culture festival South By Southwest were let go after this year’s event was canceled, the Washington Post reported.
• Christie Lights, an Orlando, Florida, based stage lighting company, laid off 100 employees.

Manufacturing & Logistics

• General Electric laid off about 10% of its jet engine workforce, around 2,500 workers.
• Union leaders at a General Motors plant in Ontario, Canada have recommended a two week layoff due to concerns over the virus.
• Mitchell Plastics of Charlestown, Indiana, has temporarily laid off 36o workers.
• Minnesota-based cabinetmaker Wayzata Home Products had to lay off its entire 141 person staff.
• The Port of Los Angeles let go of 145 drivers after ships from China stopped arriving.

Retail

• Shoe retailer DSW put up to 80% of its workers on a temporary unpaid leave of absence, according to a statement from a spokesperson to Forbes.
• Mountain Equipment Co-op, a Canadian outdoor recreation retailer, will let go of 1,300 employees by March 29.
• Laura Ashley, the British homewares and bedding maker, filed for administration (the U.K.’s version of bankruptcy) after rescue talks were impeded by the coronavirus outbreak.
• New York City bookseller McNally Jackson, which operates four locations, temporarily laid off its employees, but intends to hire them back “as soon as we can,” according to the company’s Instagram account.
• Portland, Oregon-based bookseller Powell’s Books, which operates five locations, said some of its layoffs would be permanent and that it would take several months for normal operations to be restored.

Elsewhere

What to watch for: If any U.S. airlines end up laying off workers. Delta Airlines said Tuesday it was cutting flights and freezing hiring. American Airlines is also cutting flights, and delaying trainings for new flight attendants and pilots.

What we don’t know: Exactly how many restaurant workers have been laid off due to the pandemic. New York City, a dining mecca, has about 27,000 eating and drinking establishments that were staffed by over 300,000 people. Restaurants are able to fulfill delivery and takeout orders, but can do so using skeleton crews.

Big number: 3.28 million. That’s how many American workers filed for unemployment, according to data released Thursday. It’s an increase of 3 million over the previous week of 280,00 claims⁠—already the highest number of applications since 2017, according to Department of Labor data. 

Key background: There are now nearly 80,000 reported coronavirus cases in the U.S. and over 1,100 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide cases now amount to over 521,000 infected and over 23,500 dead. Meanwhile, President Trump signed a coronavirus relief bill into law Wednesday evening. A $2 trillion (or possibly more) stimulus package proposed by the White House was unanimously passed by the Senate late Wednesday night, with the House set to vote on it Friday. New York and other state and city governments have declared states of emergency, banned large gatherings and ordered the closings of restaurants and bars to stem the spread of disease. Cancelations of concerts, sports leagues, festivals, religious gatherings and other large events have impacted millions of people. President Trump enacted 30 day travel ban from Europe (later including the U.K. and Ireland) that sent airlines and travelers scrambling to adjust, before declaring a national state of emergency March 13. Markets have essentially erased all gains made under the Trump presidency (although recovering somewhat at the promise of a stimulus deal), underscoring the economic threat of coronavirus.