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Is holding a big meeting today regarding the financial status of the company and announcing more layoffs. Everyone is best advised to handle issues yourself and don’t dial the phone to call Airbnb for every little thing.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/airbnb-holding-hands-meeting-rumors-183211899.html
I wonder if 25% is a typo or just more sensationalism. Airbnb reported 12,700+ employees in 2019, so 1,900 is almost exactly 15%.
There you go, letting facts and decent math skills get in the way of a good bit of sensationalism and bad reporting. 
I suppose the author of the article might just be missing some critical details. E.g. it could be that they laying off 1,900 people in the US and that is 25% of their US employees.
Until it’s a public company I don’t expect to really know anything much about their operations. I’m actually being snarky and suggesting that every Superhost who hasn’t been invited to apply for a grant call and ask why not.
I hope they start with the most incompetent CS reps. The ones whose skills don’t exceed sending cut-and-paste responses having nothing to do with your question and then immediately closing the conversation.
But I don’t imagine their downsizing criteria are any more transparent than anything else they do.
I can pretty much guarantee that none of those people are Airbnb employees. They are all contractors. They still might be laid off, but that’s not what this layoff is about.
To be honest, their reps have never been very helpful. And it takes them weeks to get back to hosts even after continously calling them and sending them messages through social media.
The one thing they have been completely clear and transparent about is “don’t call us about the SuperHost fund, you will get an email to apply if you qualify”. I can’t help but wonder if it’s one way to be crossed off the list
It’s a distraction technique and it seems to be working.
I have had the odd terrific rep in the past, but of late, definitely feel like a hot potato they wish would just go away, so I am—
Might be Chesky. Lots of rumours about taking him down from the top.
No longer a rumor:
“Airbnb, the home-sharing start-up, laid off around a quarter of its staff, or 1,900 people, on Tuesday as it reels from the global pandemic…(…)…Before the layoffs, Airbnb, which is based in San Francisco, had 7,500 employees.”
I wonder what percentage of the laid off staff contributed to the $1 million towards the super host fund. What a shame…
So what is the tolerance level of someone waiting on the phone for some sort of conversation/ service from a nonexistent CSR?
Apparently the $1 million said to have been contributed by staff was, like all things Airbnb, not exactly what it sounded like. It was actually donated in the form of travel credits the employees had that they wouldn’t have been able to use up anyway due to the pandemic. So Airbnb took the value of their travel credits and presented it to the public as a $1 million donation.
I never call them for that reason- I have always messaged them instead. My experience with that has been not too bad- I usually get a response fairly quickly, then have to go back and forth with them until they actually understand the issue, but eventually it gets resolved, although it might take a few days. But I can attend to it when I have time, and I find it easier to choose my words so they are well-received when writing, as opposed to talking on the phone. And I don’t have to sit there waiting for someone to answer my call, or be told they have to check with a supervisor and will call me back, because I know that’s as rare as hen’s teeth.
Ahhh. That’s interesting.
They should give us the option to do the same thing. I have a travel credit for being SH that I am not going to use. I’d gladly donate it into the pot. It’s only $100 but it would add up.
Alternately, one way they could do a little something for superhosts is to let them cash in their travel credits for a payout. It seems enough for them to just transfer it to the payouts.
Why does this not surprise me? Where did you read about it?
I’ve got one of those, too. I’d also be happy to donate it to the fund if it was an option.
I feel really sorry for Airbnb customer service low paid, ill trained staff; thousands are losing their jobs, the ones that aren’t under enormous pressure…
I bet none of those hosts and guests making the customer service reps life a misery cares about the fact they are talking to people who are also losing money and their livelihoods 
They have fast changing rules and regulations to contend with and hosts and guests screaming, shouting, swearing at them and haranguing them. No-one would do their best under such circumstances @muddy
@Helsi
Absolutely. And they are the first point of contact, and inevitably get blamed- directly or indirectly- for whatever everyone is annoyed about. A good reminder to not “shoot the messenger” as it were, since they are usually just following Airbnb protocol