Layoffs and Closings

Who owns and operates the Hyatt Hotel chain? Anyone we know?

• Hyatt Hotels Corp. will begin laying off some 1,300 of its corporate employees around the world next month, including about 350 people in Chicago. The cuts represent roughly a third of the staff at its Chicago headquarters, a Hyatt spokesperson said Tuesday.
  
  The wave of pink slips is another result of the pandemic that’s ground travel to a halt, decimated demand for hotel rooms and rocketed the U.S. unemployment rate to a Depression-era level of 14.7%.
  
  Hyatt had looked to save money by making cuts to executive salaries and reducing other corporate employees’ pay and work schedules, but the hotel chain said these moves haven’t been enough to see the company through this “unprecedented challenge.”

Laying off 1,300 employees because there isn't any business coming to the industry.

And look at this:

• Steak ‘n Shake, which got its start in Normal in 1934, is closing 57 of its restaurants — about 10 percent of the total.
  
  The company is blaming fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the closure of all of the restaurant dining rooms, according to the company’s first-quarter report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

And this:

• Potbelly, the Chicago-based chain of sandwich shops, said Tuesday it is considering whether to close 100 locations, or about 23% of its total, as it scrambles to cut costs because of the pandemic.
  
  CEO Alan Johnson discussed the potential closings in his report of the company’s first-quarter earnings. Potbelly said it saw a dramatic downturn in its results once the coronavirus, which has forced closure of restaurant dining rooms, spread widely in the U.S. during March.

These situations aren't unique these days and there are thousands of employees who are now out of work. But it seems odd that Pritzker Hyatt Hotels can cut 1,300 employees because no money is coming in. Illinois (and Cook County and Chicago) also have no money coming in, and teachers sit home, assorted State employees aren't at work, courts are closed....and no one has missed a paycheck on the government end of things. Government doesn't have any money coming in either....and all these businesses closing means that much less ever coming in.