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

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Type
Company or group
Role
Other company
Updated

The profile

Avis Budget Group's car-sharing brand cut about 20% of its staff in the spring of 2020, the year its parent terminated about 4,300 employees and lost $684 million.

  • Category: mobility
  • Pandemic-layoff role: Additional sourced company
  • Last updated: 2026-09-29

Pandemic-role map

  • Reader shorthand: Avis Budget Group's car-sharing brand, which cut about a fifth of its staff in the spring of 2020 while its parent cut about 4,300 jobs.
  • What Zipcar did for customers: rented self-service cars parked in city neighborhoods and on college campuses to members, by the hour or by the day.
  • What broke in the pandemic: rentals; its parent's rental volume fell 38% in 2020.
  • Relief role: not a lender or relief intermediary; no Zipcar borrower appears in SBA's PPP loan data.

Before the pandemic

Zipcar is one of what Avis Budget Group calls its "three most recognized brands," with Avis and Budget. Avis's 2019 annual report describes car-sharing in "over 450 cities and towns," with members booking self-service vehicles parked in reserved spaces. Avis does not report Zipcar's revenue or staff separately. The group earned $9.17 billion of revenue in 2019, made $302 million of net income and employed about 30,000 people.

What the pandemic changed

In early April 2020 Layoffs.fyi reported that Zipcar had laid off 20% of its staff the week before, "hundreds of employees," weighted toward engineering, product and design.

The parent's numbers show the scale. In the first quarter of 2020 Avis started what it called its 2020 Optimization Plan to cut headcount and facilities "due to declining reservations and revenue resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak." During 2020 it "formally communicated to and terminated approximately 4,300 employees." It ended the year with about 20,000 employees, 10,000 fewer than a year earlier. Revenue fell to $5.40 billion from $9.17 billion, on a 38% drop in rental volume, and the group lost $684 million.

After the first shock

The recovery came quickly at the parent. Avis's revenue rose 72% in 2021, to $9.31 billion, which its annual report attributes partly to higher volume "as the mobility industry recovers from the pandemic," and it earned $1.29 billion. Net income reached $2.76 billion in 2022 and $1.63 billion in 2023. Avis then reported losses of $1.82 billion in 2024 and $889 million in 2025. None of these reports break out Zipcar.

Where the company is now

Zipcar operates as an Avis Budget Group brand. The group's 2025 annual report still describes it as car-sharing "in urban areas and college campuses in hundreds of cities and towns," booked by members through its app and website.

Sources

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