Saudi Gazette report

DUBAI — In an arbitrary and a shocking move, Qatar Airways laid off scores of employees, mainly Filipinos, this week as the country reels from the novel coronavirus.

Around 200 Filipinos working at the airline were among the workers served their termination letter on Monday, ABS-CBN News, a media group based in Philippines reported.

Confirming the ABS-CBN report, Philippine Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello told Reuters on Wednesday that around 200 Filipinos were unexpectedly laid off by the airline.

“Our labor attache is under strict instructions to determine what is the real cause of the decision of management to retrench them on the basis of redundancy,” Bello was quoted say saying.

Earlier Philippine Labor Attache to Qatar David Des Dicang said that the most of those who were terminated, effective Tuesday (March 17), were assigned at the technical department such as engineers, maintenance staff and other related jobs.

The workers were all surprised by their sudden termination. The reason stated in the termination letter was redundancy, ABS-CBN News reported.

Qatar Airways has not commented on the issue so far.

Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of Qatar Airways faced flak on Friday for doubting the existence of the deadly coronavirus.