Vacasa Cuts About 1,300 Jobs in Its Second Round of Layoffs in Three Months (January 2023)

From the record. This is a look back at January 2023. The desk wrote it on 11 October 2026 from sources published at the time; Stay Gazette opened in July 2026 and did not report this as it happened.

On 24 January 2023, Vacasa told its employees and the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was eliminating approximately 1,300 positions, approximately 17% of its workforce. The Portland, Oregon company, which described itself as the largest vacation rental management platform in North America, said the cuts fell on both its local operations teams and its central teams. Its board had approved the plan the day before.

It was the second reduction in three months. In October 2022 Vacasa had let go about 280 people, primarily in corporate functions. Chief executive Rob Greyber, who joined in September 2022, told staff the company had to lower its costs and become profitable.

What Vacasa cut

The company's Form 8-K, filed on 24 January, described a workforce reduction plan designed to align its cost base with its 2023 priorities and to reach Adjusted EBITDA profitability in 2023. The filing set out the scale and the bill:

Approximately 1,300 positions, in local operations teams and central teams.
A pre-tax cost of approximately $5 million.
Of that, approximately $4 million in severance payments and approximately $1 million in employee benefits and related costs.
Substantially all of the charges expected in the first two quarters of 2023, all of them to be paid in cash.

Vacasa expected to have substantially finished the reduction by the second quarter of 2023. The filing did not say how the positions were split between the local teams and the central ones.

Greyber's email to all staff, which the company furnished as an exhibit to the filing, said the people affected had already been notified. He wrote that they would be offered severance, continued healthcare benefits for those already enrolled, and access to career placement services.

Skift reported that it received a tip on the Monday night and that Vacasa gave the details in a filing after the market closed on the Tuesday. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that 33 of the jobs were in Portland, and put the company's Portland area staff at roughly 400 before the recent rounds of layoffs started. The Portland station FOX 12 described the company as managing thousands of vacation rentals in North America, Belize and Costa Rica.

What the chief executive told staff

Greyber wrote that some opportunities for improvement had been clear as soon as he arrived, and that the annual planning process had shown him there was more work to do. He went on: “As part of this, we need to reduce our costs and continue to focus on becoming a profitable company.”

He listed four principles that he said would decide the company's long-term success:

Price and manage homes to deliver revenue to owners.
Operate consistently for owners and guests.
Add homes to the platform to expand its market position.
Get the software and the operating platform right.

He also wrote that the choices had been made to maintain the service levels that owners and guests had come to expect. A company spokesman, Adam Pedowitz, went a step further. He told FOX 12: “These reductions were strategically made across the company to maintain or exceed our high service levels for Vacasa homeowners and guests”.

On the same day Vacasa confirmed that it had made no changes to the fourth-quarter 2022 revenue and Adjusted EBITDA guidance it issued on 9 November 2022.

Why it happened

The reasons were in the letter to shareholders that carried that guidance. Third-quarter revenue was $412 million, up 25% on the year before, and net income was $16 million. At $46 million, Adjusted EBITDA missed the company's guidance range of $55 million to $60 million. Vacasa pointed to local market and customer support costs that ran higher than it expected. The letter said: “Demand was strong during the third quarter, but we were over-resourced in several areas, and that caused costs to exceed our forecast.”

The company said the overruns came largely from its own processes and its approach to managing operations. It believed the costs could be fixed, and said they were not fixed yet.

The same letter reported a change in demand. Guest bookings had softened after a strong summer. Vacasa said it had noticed the weakness in September and that it had deepened in the fourth quarter. For that quarter Vacasa guided to revenue of $195 million to $215 million and to Adjusted EBITDA of negative $75 million to negative $65 million. It lowered its expected growth in homes for 2022 from about 30% to nearly 20%, and said average gross booking value per home could decline in 2023 from record levels.

The October reduction was reported in that letter. A separate Form 8-K showed that on 14 October 2022 the board appointed John Banczak chief operating officer, with charge of the field and central operations teams.

Vacasa told shareholders it believed it was still well capitalized. It reported $392 million of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at 30 September 2022. It had gone public in December 2021 through a merger with the special purpose acquisition company TPG Pace Solutions, Short Term Rentalz noted. By January 2023, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported, its stock had slumped.

How the trade read it

Skift's own comment on the day, printed above its report, was that Vacasa's ranks had been bloated and that the company had not been very well run in the years before.

Vacasa was not the only company cutting. Short Term Rentalz reported that in the same week Inspirato, a luxury travel subscription company, confirmed it was laying off 12% of its staff, and that Sonder and AvantStay had announced large layoff rounds in 2022. It also counted an earlier cut at Vacasa itself: 25 positions in the sales department, announced in July 2022.

The Gazette Verdict, looking back

Vacasa hired for a boom, and its staff paid when the boom slowed. The company's own letter of November 2022 said its teams had been staffed for high demand, that costs ran over forecast, and that bookings had softened since September. In January 2023 it said it was removing approximately 1,300 positions at an estimated cost of approximately $5 million, having reported $392 million of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash as of 30 September 2022. Shareholders were offered a cheaper company and the stated aim of Adjusted EBITDA profitability in 2023. Employees paid. Any homeowner whose local team shrank was exposed too, because the filing put local operations inside the cut and gave no split. The lesson for an owner was to judge a manager by the people on the ground in the owner's own market, and to ask how many of them were left.

The other side

The case for the cut is the company's own, and it is a fair one. Vacasa had told investors that it was over-resourced and that the overruns came from its own processes. A manager that cannot cover its costs cannot promise owners it will be there next summer, and Vacasa was guiding to Adjusted EBITDA of negative $75 million to negative $65 million for a single quarter. Its spokesman said the reductions were made to maintain or exceed service levels, and its chief executive put delivering revenue to owners first among his four principles. Skift's comment on the day was that the ranks had been bloated.

What it meant for hosts

Vacasa made its money from a commission on the rental income it brought its homeowners and from fees charged to guests, its November 2022 letter said. For an owner with a home on its books in January 2023, the announcement said nothing about changing that arrangement. What it changed was the number of people behind the service. The plan reached the local operations teams, and neither the filing nor the email said which markets would lose staff or how many. An owner who wanted to know who would handle housekeeping and field work on the home that season had to ask.

The company's outlook gave owners a second thing to plan for. In November 2022 it had said bookings were softer and that average gross booking value per home could decline in 2023 from record levels. An owner who budgeted for 2023 on the income of 2022 was assuming something the manager itself would not.

For independent property managers there were two signals. Vacasa still meant to add homes. Greyber made it one of his four principles, and the company signed up individual owners through local sales representatives. But it had also said, in the November letter, that it expected to meaningfully reduce the capital it put into buying local vacation rental managers in 2023, after spending over $115 million of cash on that program in 2022 up to then. A manager who had hoped to sell to Vacasa faced a buyer that planned to spend less. A manager competing with it for owners faced a rival that was still selling.

Sources

Vacasa, Inc. (SEC filing), Form 8-K, current report, date of earliest event reported January 23, 2023 (Items 2.02, 2.05 and 7.01) (24 January 2023).
Vacasa, Inc. (SEC filing), Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K: All Company Email, “Connecting on Today’s News”, from Rob Greyber (24 January 2023).
Skift, Vacasa Slashes 17 Percent of Workforce in Second Recent Round of Layoffs (24 January 2023).
Oregon Public Broadcasting, Portland-based Vacasa lays off 1,300 employees (24 January 2023).
KPTV FOX 12 Oregon, Portland-based Vacasa plans to layoff 1,300 employees (25 January 2023).
Short Term Rentalz, Vacasa reduces total workforce by 17 per cent (29 January 2023).
Vacasa, Inc. (SEC filing), Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K of November 9, 2022: Third Quarter 2022 shareholder letter (9 November 2022).
Vacasa, Inc. (SEC filing), Form 8-K, current report, October 14, 2022 (Items 5.02 and 7.01) (14 October 2022).

Vacasa Cuts About 1,300 Jobs in Its Second Round of Layoffs in Three Months