Airbnb Cuts Contractors and Cancels Summer Internships Amid Pandemic
Airbnb ends contracts for contingent workers and delays undergraduate hiring as the COVID-19 crisis disrupts the tech industry. Affected interns now face a sudden, highly competitive search for replacement opportunities.
Airbnb terminates its contracts with contingent workers, such as property inspectors and home consultants, and cancels its summer internship program. Affected contractors receive at least two weeks of pay after their temp agencies notify them of the early contract endings. The company also delays its hiring of undergraduate students until the following year.
The sudden cancellation leaves incoming interns scrambling to find new opportunities in a highly constrained job market. One affected Stanford computer science major expresses devastation over the late notice, noting that he already turns down other competitive offers to accept the Airbnb position. With most companies halting their remote internship hiring due to the pandemic, students lose a crucial opportunity to gain experience before entering the full-time job market.
Airbnb joins a growing list of tech companies, including Yelp, StubHub, Glassdoor, Funding Circle, and Checkr, that cancel their summer internship programs in response to the COVID-19 crisis. These significant personnel cuts occur just one day after Airbnb secures a $1 billion loan and follows an earlier $1 billion raise in debt and equity.