SoftBank-backed home rental firm axes 20% of Beijing HQ staff

Chinese home rental platform Ziroom is dismissing 20% of its staff at its Beijing headquarters, which employs less than 4,000 people, reported Pandaily, citing a 36Kr report.

The layoffs, which began this month, mainly affected non-frontline business departments, such as internet marketing, operations management, quality, and design, among others. Property managers in the frontline business departments, however, accused Ziroom of concealing pay cuts by reducing their monthly merit pay instead. Some bonuses were also slashed in half.

This comes at a time when the company is managing only 850,000 houses this year from 1 million in 2021, according to employees.

Ziroom, which is backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, said  that these were normal adjustments in some verticals. It also plans to continue to hire more housekeepers as well as employees to serve clients and property owners.

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