Uber to lay off 3,700 employees, about 14% of workforce

Uber Technologies Inc. is cutting about 3,700 workers as the ride-hailing service looks to reduce costs amid the coronavirus pandemic that has led to a dramatic fall off in rides.

The San Francisco-based company revealed the job cuts Wednesday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission a day ahead of reporting first-quarter financial results. The terminations, which affect the customer support and recruiting teams, will likely result in $20 million in severance and other benefit costs, the company said.

United Airlines plans 30% cut to management ranks from October

(Reuters) - United Airlines Holdings Inc (UAL) has told employees that it expects its management and administrative ranks to be around 30% smaller starting in October, according to a company memo seen by Reuters.

United is among U.S. airlines that have accepted U.S. government payroll aid that bans job cuts until Sept. 30. United has warned that air travel demand hit by the coronavirus pandemic is unlikely to have recovered by that date, forcing it to downsize.

Royal Caribbean : Heavy layoffs

Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL) confirms it plans to lay off or furlough about 1.3K of its 5K workers in the U.S. due to the "no sail order" amid the pandemic.

The company says a majority of those affected fall in the layoff category.

Royal Caribbean employs about 65K people globally.

American Express : Hiring freeze, but no layoffs

American Express (NYSE:AXP) will avoid layoffs this year, says CEO Steve Squeri, but nevertheless needs to reduce costs. To that end, he's put in place a hiring freeze.

In other items, he notes that two-thirds of the company's customer-service teams (that's 60K people) now work from home vs. 10% a couple of weeks ago.

Squeri: "In two weeks, we have completely transformed our global servicing operations, going from a brick-and-mortar, traditional call-center environment to a totally distributed, home-based servicing one."

Shares and down more than 35% from a month ago.