Ziroom Lays Off 20% of HQ Staff, Property Count Falls by Nearly 150K

Ziroom, a home rental platform based in Beijing, is reportedly conducting layoffs of around 20% of staff at its headquarters, which currently has less than 4,000 employees in the middle and back offices and functional departments, except for the front-line business departments. The layoffs cover internet marketing, operations management, quality, design and other departments, according to a report by 36Kr on Thursday.

According to several employees who spoke with 36Kr, the company has been carrying out mass layoffs since the beginning of June, and the monetary compensation is “N+1” (standard severance compensation, plus the salary of one month). The employees only have two or three days to complete the transitions.

Although the layoffs did not affect the firm’s front-line business departments, some property managers reported to 36Kr that their monthly merit pay was greatly reduced, which was a disguised pay cut. The bonus for keeping the same number of houses has been halved from 10,000 yuan ($1,496.62) to 5,000 yuan ($748.46).

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Regarding the matter, the firm replied to domestic media, claiming that recent changes are normal adjustments carried out in some departments, but the company will continue to recruit staff to serve customers and property owners and expand the team of housekeepers.

However, according to employees, compared with the 1 million houses disclosed last year, the number of houses has dropped to 850,000, a decrease of 150,000.

Founded in 2011, Ziroom was originally a business unit of Homelink (also known as Lianjia). With the continuous development of its business, it officially became independent in 2016. According to public data, Ziroom has now entered 10 cities, operated nearly 1 million houses, and served 500,000 owners and 5 million customers up until October 2021.