Airbnb reportedly lays off contractors and cancels summer internships

Airbnb has ended its contracts with contingent workers early and postponed summer internships, Protocol reports. Contractors at Airbnb serve as property inspectors, home consultants and more.

Contractors will reportedly receive no less than two weeks’ pay after receiving notice from their temp agencies.

Airbnb will also reportedly delay hiring undergraduate students until next year. TechCrunch has since heard from an incoming intern that he was notified yesterday and that he’s now scrambling to find a new internship.

“I’m devastated about the decision, both because I turned down many competitive offers in favor of Airbnb and because they made the decision so late that it will be incredibly difficult to find new opportunities in such a short time frame,” Ray Iyer, a computer science major at Stanford, told TechCrunch. :I’m relying on social media resources like LinkedIn to directly source opportunities, and this has led to some promising leads. Nonetheless, with the state of the virus and the fact that most internships will have to be remote, very few companies are hiring right now. I am graduating next year, and this summer was an opportunity to get my foot in the door and alleviate the stress of full-time recruiting in these uncertain times. I’m definitely going to put in my best effort to find a suitable replacement opportunity.:

Airbnb is not the only tech company to cancel internships amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, Yelp canceled its summer internship and TC’s Natasha Mascarenhas has since learned StubHub, Glassdoor, Funding Circle and Checkr have also canceled their respective internships.

These personnel changes come just one day after Airbnb secured a $1 billion loan. Earlier this month, Airbnb raised an additional $1 billion in debt and equity.

TechCrunch has reached out to Airbnb and will update this story if we hear back.

Additional reporting by Natasha Mascarenhas.