Rolling Layoffs At Enterprise Rental

Enterprise Rent-A-Car has laid off over 2,300 people to date after experiencing a critical drop in business. Layoffs began in March, and have taken place across different states. Over 2,000 layoffs have taken place in Enterprise’s home state of Missouri.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car is the parent company of Enterprise, Alamo, and National. As a whole, the travel industry has been critically impacted by the coronavirus and subsequent lockdowns. 217 countries have imposed travel restrictions (including complete travel bans in 97 countries), according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Commercial flights fell from over 100,000 per day at the beginning of the year to 29,000 per day in April. Hotels are likely to lose over 100 million jobs. In March, the U.S. Travel Association predicted that the coronavirus would cost the United States $809 billion in lost travel revenue.

While Enterprise’s bread and butter comes from car rental services, the company also handles commercial fleet management and truck rental. While most of the layoffs appear to be affiliated with Enterprise’s rental car business, it is possible that the logistics business is affected as well.
Enterprise is reported to have tried reducing hours and staff pay, freezing hiring, and pausing third party contracts before turning to lay offs. The company initially planned to bring back furloughed workers, however it is becoming more likely that job losses will be permanent. In a statement, the company said that, ‘the COVID-19 global health crisis has created significant and unprecedented challenges for Enterprise Holdings…like others across the travel industry, we have witnessed a severe impact to our business with corporate business and leisure travel still at a standstill.’