Marriott begins laying off corporate employees

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As Marriott International has doubled in size in a decade, it saw an opportunity to rethink and restructure its organization for efficiency.

Sean O’Neill

Marriott International informed employees this week of a widespread restructuring that could result in hundreds of employees leaving the company, company sources told Skift.

The cuts apply globally and affect ‘above-ownership’ positions, which affect people at corporate level rather than those working in hotels.

Some employees were offered early retirement in the third quarter. Other employees whose positions are eliminated will only be able to apply for other vacancies at Marriott for internal candidates, three sources said.

The company, based in Bethesda, Maryland, has filed a Work Adjustment and Retraining Notifications (WARN) complaint with the state about the layoffs, a source said. The state still had to do that post the report online. Skift will update this story when it does.

The hotel giant revealed on November 4 when reporting third quarter results that a major organizational overhaul would take place.

A company spokesperson declined to say how many people have been laid off and would not answer questions about Skift’s reporting. But they did provide an explanation:

“Earlier this year, we initiated a strategic review of all aspects of Marriott International’s operations across regions to increase our enterprise-wide effectiveness and discussed this initiative during our Q3 earnings call,” the spokesperson said. “While always difficult, these job cuts across our corporate and continent offices will reshape the way we work and are expected to occur largely in the first quarter of 2025.”

The past few days an online Reddit forum featuring Marriott employees is full of speculation about the cuts, while a handful employees took to TikTok to discuss the layoffs.

Marriott cuts

Management said on November 4 that it had been targeted $80 to $90 million per year in cost savings as part of a restructuring initiative involving one-off costs aimed at achieving company-wide effectiveness to support future growth.

“This initiative is expected to result in approximately $100 million in costs, primarily in the fourth quarter of 2024,” said Leeny Oberg, chief financial officer, referring to “employee severance benefits.”

Affected employees will be eligible for severance packages (varying based on position and length of service) including outplacement assistance, a source said.

New openings are coming

If Marriott eliminates a job, any affected employee, as the company calls its employees, can apply for new positions that will be opened to internal candidates first, a source said.

Apparently the company had nothing to do with that, but as of Thursday the company had dozens of job openings on its career pages in the US and Europe. That’s it, for example advertise for approximately 50 open vacancies at the headquarters in Bethesda.

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