Booking.com To Cut Workforce By 25 Pct

Booking Holding Inc., the Connecticut-based company that owns travel website Booking.com, plans to reduce its workforce by as many as 4,250 positions as its business continues suffer during the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported.

“Unfortunately, as a result of the crisis, we, like so many other travel companies, need to take the extremely difficult step to reduce our global workforce,” Booking told the news service in an email, saying up to 25 percent of its global employee base would be impacted.

Booking had 17,000 employees at the start of the month and said it was trying to save as many jobs as possible. The publicly-traded company has an overseas office in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where it employs 5,500.

On Thursday (Aug. 6), Booking Holdings is expected to reveal that its second quarter (Q2) earnings fell year over year, according to Yahoo Finance.

The earnings report could help the stock rise higher if key numbers are better than expectations. But if they miss, the stock may move lower.

The online booking service is expected to post a quarterly loss of $11.87 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a  loss of more than 150 percent compared to Q2 last year.

Revenues are expected to be $511.28 million, down 86.7 percent from the year-ago quarter.

In June, the Supreme Court sided with Booking.com allowing the company to trademark the generic term associated with their domain name, CNN reported.

The high court’s 8-1 decision ruled that adding “.com” to a generic word can make the combination eligible for trademark protection.

“We have no cause to deny Booking.com the same benefits Congress accorded other marks qualifying as nongeneric,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion.

Booking.com filed to register its name at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, but was denied. The agency said generic names are ineligible for trademark protection.

But lawyers for Booking argued they needed trademark protection to prevent competitors from opening storefront Booking.com travel agencies, or from diluting its brand by selling Booking.com-themed travel products in airport shops.