Portland vacation rental management company Vacasa notified employees Friday that it is laying off an unspecified number of workers, cutting the hours of others in half, and reducing executive pay.

Vacasa had been Oregon’s most promising company in a generation, raising more than $500 million in outside investment that valued the business at more than $1 billion. But the hospitality and lodging industry has been walloped by the coronavirus outbreak, with vacation travel all but ceasing as people seek to protect themselves from infection.

“With rapidly evolving travel restrictions and closures in popular vacation destinations like ski resorts and beaches, we are seeing a significant decline in reservations and revenue,” Vacasa said in a written statement Friday. “To preserve the longevity of our business, we have to make proactive and significant cost adjustments, including staffing changes across the organization.”

Privately held Vacasa is a vacation rental listing service that also maintains vacation homes for property owners. It has 6,000 employees worldwide, most of them in destinations across the country from Astoria to Annapolis. It employs more than 400 at its Pearl District headquarters.

While Vacasa did not say how many employees will be laid off, or how many will have their hours cut, the company did say that interim CEO Matt Roberts will take no pay through the end of the year and that other executives will have their compensation reduced by half.

Hotels and vacation services are struggling all over the world. Marriott said this week it will furlough tens of thousands of employees, though it will continue providing their health benefits -- at least for a time.

Oregon is suffering unprecedented job cuts during the coronavirus outbreak, especially in the hospitality sector. On Tuesday alone, 18,500 people filed for unemployment claims – more than in any entire week during the Great Recession.

State economists say a recession is all but inevitable now, with the duration and severity dependent on how quickly the outbreak is contained.

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699

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