Qatar Airways unexpectedly laid off about 200 Filipino staff in Qatar this week as the coronavirus outbreak forces the Middle East airline to slash flights, Philippine Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello told Reuters on Wednesday, reports Arab News.
"Our labor attaché is under strict instructions to determine what is the real cause of the decision of management to retrench them on the basis of redundancy," he told Reuters.
Qatar Airways did not respond to a request for comment.
The layoffs were reported earlier by ABS-CBN. It said the Filipino employees, including engineers and maintenance staff, were laid off on Tuesday.
The report said other employees also lost their jobs, though did not provide further details.
State-owned Qatar Airways had warned it would report its third consecutive loss this financial year, which ends this month, before the outbreak battered global travel demand. It is one of the Middle East's biggest airlines and most of its traffic transits through its Doha hub. It does not operate domestic flights.
