UPDATE: Nov. 18, 2024: The state of Maryland made public a Work Adjustment and Retraining Notice stating 833 Marriott employees were impacted by a mass layoff at the company.
Marriott International is underway on a companywide restructuring that will result in layoffs for a significant number of corporate employees, the company confirmed to Hotel Dive Friday.
A Marriott spokesperson told Hotel Dive that, earlier this year, the company “began a strategic review of all aspects of Marriott International’s business across geographies to enhance our enterprise-wide effectiveness.” This process has resulted in job reductions companywide.
Skift first reported Thursday that Marriott International had informed employees that the widespread restructuring may result in hundreds of employees exiting the company.
Company restructuring
Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano discussed the restructuring initiative during the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Nov. 4, saying that Marriott was undergoing an “enterprise-wide process to enhance our effectiveness and efficiency across the company,” though he did not mention layoffs explicitly on the call.
Marriott CFO Leeny Oberg said during that call that the initiative would “yield $80 million to $90 million of annual pre-tax general and administrative cost reductions beginning in 2025.”
Marriott confirmed to Hotel Dive that as part of this initiative, “several hundred job openings will be made available.” The company spokesperson said many affected associates are expected to apply for and be selected for these roles and will remain employed with the company.
Corporate job cuts
Several anonymous users in an online forum on TheLayoff.com, a popular anonymous forum for recently laid-off employees across industries, seemed to think there would be greater negative implications for Marriott workers and departments at large than the spokesperson let on.
“Departments across the company are decimated,” one user wrote. Other users shared that teams under the IT, delivery and security departments were impacted, while the “Brand and Marketing teams were gutted,” and there were also “huge cuts to Global Operations teams.”
Multiple anonymous users in the online forum noted that “top-tier VPs” were among those cut by Marriott, with more than 500 employees in total affected.
Marriott declined to specify which departments or positions, specifically, were impacted by the restructuring. “While always difficult, these job reductions at our corporate and continent offices will reshape the way we work and are expected to be largely in place in Q1 2025,” the Marriott spokesperson said.
One anonymous user in the forum wrote that the layoffs of “hundreds” as well as the “forcing [of] high level executives into retirement” would take effect in January.
Downstream impact
The layoffs will impact corporate associates, not those who work on-property, so it “should minimally impact guests,” a user wrote, adding the move is in “an effort to cut costs to hotel owners.”
During Marriott’s Q3 earnings call, Capuano said the restructuring initiative was designed to “further empower our teams closest to our market's guests, owners and franchisees to operate even more nimbly.”
“We believe these efforts will drive increased profitability and enhanced value,” he added.
The Marriott spokesperson told Hotel Dive the “appropriate disclosures have been submitted,” regarding the layoffs. The Work Adjustment and Retraining Notice, though, had not yet been made public by the state of Maryland at the time this story was published.
