The 160 people who no longer work at LivingSocial’s D.C. offices first heard about the layoffs from reading the news, says one person who was laid off by the daily deals company today.

The D.C.-based daily deals company LivingSocial is cutting its worldwide payroll by roughly 400 jobs, including about 160 who work in its six offices spread across Washington.

The District is protected from the job cuts at LivingSocial that began quietly last night and are expected to continue today, a spokesman for Mayor Vince Gray told DCist.

After the D.C. Council gave its unanimous consent to advance a bill that will give daily deal giant LivingSocial a $32.5 million tax abatement, the company’s spokesman said it has every intention of living up to its end of the bargain.

Mayor Vince Gray’s proposal to generous tax breaks to LivingSocial in order to keep the expanding daily deals website based here is up for a vote in the D.C. Council today, but the deal as originally arranged might be lacking.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett wound up in a flap this week when he was accused of supporting a tax break for moustaches. But made us wonder what other equally ridiculous loopholes might be in the works.

It makes sense that a group who trades in real estate data would know how to play the commercial real estate game. CoStar Group probably deserves some credit for this move, though: Jonathan O’Connell reports that the firm will sell its location at 1331 L Street NW — which they purchased last year for $41 million — for a whopping $101 million to a German firm, notching “the most profitable flip of commercial real estate…