Sabre Axes 900 Workers to Revamp Some of Its Business Lines
Skift Take
By cutting the management ranks, Sabre's new CEO Sean Menke addresses a gripe of "management bloat" among workers writing on review sites like Glassdoor. He also wisely cuts costs to fund new investment.
Sabre, the U.S-headquartered travel technology services company, has axed about 900 jobs -- about nine percent of its 10,000-person workforce, and will cease recruiting for some openings.
The cuts at Sabre -- which the company says will slash corporate and back-office positions by 12 percent and strip away managerial positions that were slowing the pace of software development -- follows a strategic review to address what Sabre says calls a refocusing of spending on its most profitable services.
Given that most of the layoffs were of positions at the vice-president level and above, the company is taking a $25 million charge in severance payments.
But it expects to gain $110 million a year in cost savings, which would be plowed into developing retailing solutions for airlines, a better version of its property management system for hotels, and better security for its IT systems and software solutions.
“It's a tough decision,” says Sean Menke, the company’s chief executive. The restructuring, he says, is intended to transform Sabre into a leaner, more competitive business. “This is a year of transition,” he adds.
The job cuts come with an executive shake-up as the first major management moves taken by Menke since he took the helm seven months ago.
Menke has recently filled new executive
