Industrious slashes a third of its workforce

Layoffs are mostly in the design, development and finance departments

Industrious CEO Jamie Hodari (Credit: iStock; Illustration by The Real Deal)
Industrious CEO Jamie Hodari (Credit: iStock; Illustration by The Real Deal)

Industrious is the latest flexible-office startup to make significant cuts to its workforce.

The company laid off 90 employees, or 20 percent of its total staff, in addition to reducing hours and imposing furloughs on another 10 percent, Commercial Observer reported. Most of the cuts were in the company’s design, real estate development and finance departments.

“If you go from signing seven, eight new locations a month to signing two or three, that severely impacts the amount of design work the company has, for example,” CEO Jamie Hodari said.

In February, the company took 100,000 square feet at Vornado’s One Penn Plaza, partnering with Vornado to share profits from the operations of its spaces. That was on the heels of signing management agreements at Carnegie Hall Tower on West 57th Street for about 17,000 square feet and at 135 West 50th Street for 60,000 square feet.

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The company is not alone in scaling back in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Flexible-office company Knotel cut half of its 400-person workforce last week as its membership dropped.

Beleaguered co-working firm WeWork also laid off 250 workers last week — but not because of hardship stemming from the health crisis.

[CO] — Georgia Kromrei