Airbnb: Pandemic Layoffs, Business Model, and Current Status

Full company profile: Airbnb. This page covers its pandemic layoffs.

Category: travel and hospitality Pandemic-layoff role: Additional sourced company Last updated: 2026-09-25 Related article: The Pandemic Layoff Stress Test

Pandemic-role map

Reader shorthand: lodging marketplace hit by the global travel stop.
What Airbnb did for customers: connected guests with hosts renting rooms, homes and Experiences.
What broke in the pandemic: short-term stays, Experiences and cross-border travel collapsed in March 2020, and the company forecast 2020 revenue at less than half of 2019's.
Relief role: Airbnb was not a PPP lender, referral agent or government-support contractor. The aid it gave hosts came from its own money and its founders', employees' and investors'.
Data/support role: a benchmark for how a software marketplace can still depend directly on physical travel.

Founders, Executives, and Investors

Airbnb was founded in San Francisco in 2008 by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. Chesky was chief executive before, during and after the pandemic. In June 2020 the company said the three founders had personally put $9 million into its Superhost Relief Fund, alongside $1 million donated by employees and $7 million from investors.

Business Before the Pandemic

Airbnb ran a global marketplace for short-term stays and Experiences, and its revenue depended almost entirely on travel. It had 7,500 employees in May 2020. CNBC reported that heading into the year the company had been eyeing a public listing and had lined up bankers to lead the offering.

What the Pandemic Changed

The first moves were aimed at hosts. On March 26, 2020 Airbnb announced a program to house 100,000 healthcare workers, relief workers and first responders for free or at a subsidy, with Airbnb waiving its fees. On March 30 a letter to hosts apologized for telling guests they could cancel for COVID-19 refunds "without consulting you." It committed $250 million to pay hosts 25% of what they would normally have received under their cancellation policies for affected check-ins between March 14 and May 31 and created a $10 million Superhost Relief Fund. The June 18 update put the fund at $17 million and said it had paid $16.8 million in grants of $1,000 to $5,000 to more than 8,700 hosts, 67% of them outside the United States.

The workforce cut came on May 5, 2020. Chesky's note to employees said revenue for the year was forecast at less than half of 2019's. The company had already raised $2 billion and cut costs across the business. In April, CNBC reported, it had frozen hiring, suspended marketing and cut executive pay. Nearly 1,900 of the 7,500 employees, about 25%, would leave. Airbnb paused its Transportation and Airbnb Studios efforts and scaled back Hotels and Lux. Departing U.S. employees got 14 weeks of base pay plus a week for every year of service, and 12 months of COBRA health coverage. The company also waived the one-year equity cliff for recent hires so that everyone leaving would be a shareholder. The last working day for affected staff in the U.S. and Canada was May 11.

Business After the First Shock

The narrower business went public on December 10, 2020. In its May 24, 2021 product release the company described "three fundamental shifts in travel," with guests traveling at any time, to more places and for longer. It added Flexible Dates search and a new 10-step process for becoming a host. Chesky tied the changes to lines "blurring" between travel, living and working.

Where the Company Is Now

Public company, Nasdaq: ABNB. Chesky is still chief executive.

Airbnb Profile: Pandemic Layoffs, Business Model, and Current Status