As COVID-19 continues to impact the real estate industry, realtor.com has laid off employees as part of an ongoing organizational realignment across Move, a subsidiary of News Corp and the operator of realtor.com.
The company said that the impact of COVID-19 factored in the changes as well.
In a letter obtained by HousingWire from Move CEO David Doctorow to employees, Doctorow said that the decision was necessary as part of broader efforts to cut expenses.
“When I arrived in early February, I began a process with the leadership team to review the company strategy and structure, with an eye towards simplification, clear and greater accountability, and faster decision-making and execution,” Doctorow said in the note. “In April, we took the first step in streamlining the company by announcing changes at the leadership level. Some of today’s actions represent the next step of this process.”
“As we were working through what this realignment would look like and the impact it would have on all of us, the COVID-19 global pandemic hit with full force in March,” Doctorow continued. “It was then that we quickly recognized how urgent it was to cut costs significantly. In response, we announced major reductions to our hiring, travel, and marketing expenses on March 31 and enacted those immediately, hoping these steps would be sufficient to weather the storm.”
The letter stated that its realignments were made across functions and levels in the company, with every office and business unit affected, but did not provide exact numbers on how many employees were let go on Tuesday.
In light of the pandemic, realtor.com has recently extended its billing reduction program and launched livestreaming open houses as solutions to its consumers.
Realtor.com isn’t the only one making these changes – Airbnb, Opendoor, Compass and Redfin are a few companies that have made pandemic-related cuts.
