Layoffs and Bankruptcies

WWL Vehicle Services Americas is closing a Houston logistics operation and moving to Freeport, Texas.

Freight brokerage Coyote Logistics has slashed an unspecified number of jobs in its sales and operations divisions.

TruBlu Logistics is divesting its private long-haul fleet and will transition cross-dock shuttle operations to another company, affecting over 600 trucking jobs.

GXO Logistics is closing a Memphis distribution facility and laying off 211 workers.

Digital freight brokerage Uber Freight confirmed Tuesday it was forced to cut a number of jobs in order to align with its “continued commitment to drive sustainable growth.”

Seattle-based logistics startup Flexe is laying off 99 workers, its third round of layoffs in two years.

A California-based third-party logistics company, which had 34 power units and 33 drivers, filed for bankruptcy liquidation on Thursday.

The demise of Yellow Corp. dominated headlines after the carrier filed for bankruptcy protection in August. A lot of smaller carriers and brokerages also called it quits in 2023.

We take a look back at some of the FreightWaves stories that captured your attention this year.

The move included the departure of a key executive, Glenn Koepke, vice president of strategy.

Western Global Airlines is starting with a clean slate after completing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but still faces difficult market conditions.

Postal Service contractor Matheson Trucking and wholly owned subsidiaries Matheson Flight Extenders and Matheson Postal Services of Sacramento are winding down operations after six decades in business.

TuSimple Holdings is following through on winding down its U.S. autonomous trucking business, laying off 150 more employees.

Canada-based electric trucking startup Lion Electric cuts 10% of head count to reduce costs as it seeks profitability.

Freight brokerages typically can stay afloat during trucking recessions. But the ongoing, severe downturn has slammed third-party logistics companies.

Amid an ongoing financial dispute with the U.S. Postal Service, Matheson Flight Extenders plans to lay off more than 450 employees by Dec. 15 and close its mail sorting facilities in California.

A GXO location in Groveport, Ohio, outside Columbus, will shutter on Jan. 15.

Trucking and logistics companies are seeing a massive downturn. FreightWaves has reported on the biggest shutdowns and layoffs since 2022.

Former Elite Transit Solutions employees say when they raised concerns to CEO Michael D. Johnson about carriers not being paid or suddenly being blocked from posting freight on one of the country’s largest load boards, he “always had an answer for everything.”

Employees air frustrations with company management after being let go on Teams.

Trucking company 10 Roads Express has laid off 66 workers at its facility in Fort Worth, Texas.

FreightWaves’ Rachel Premack spoke with OTR Solutions’ EVP Clayton Griffin about the current state of freight brokerages and the risk they pose to carriers.

Hyliion Holdings is throwing in the towel on its Hypertruck ERX natural gas-electric powertrain to focus on generator technology.

Meadow Lark Agency and its affiliate, Meadow Lark Transport, filed for bankruptcy liquidation Monday, owing around 120 former employees almost $800,000 and nearly 1,300 trucking companies about $2.7 million.

Air Transport Services Group’s underperformance cost CEO Rich Corrado his job on Monday.

UPS has bought out a small contingent of senior pilots. An American Airlines regional partner is trying to attract them to fly small jets.

An online auction is slated for Tuesday to sell the assets of Minnesota-based Twin Express Inc., which had more than 70 power units, after the trucking company defaulted on a $19 million loan.

Approximately 65 employees for Pittsburgh-based Elite Transit Solutions were laid off via Microsoft Teams on Friday. This is the second round of job cuts the freight brokerage has experienced over the past month; about 20 employees were let go on Oct. 20 because of the “current economic situation,” according to sources familiar with the layoffs.

After 12 years at the helm of the freight brokerages he founded and bootstrapped in 2011 — SEL Supply Chain Solutions (SELSCS) of Fort Worth, Texas — CEO Dennis Martin says he is winding down operations.

While logistics visibility platform provider Slync had hoped that new management and a $24 million cash infusion in February would be enough to save the FreightTech company after its former CEO was indicted on fraud charges, the company is proceeding with an alternative option to a traditional bankruptcy and plans to wind down operations and sell off its technology.

A third-generation family-owned trucking company and brokerage — Certified Freight Logistics, headquartered in Santa Maria, California — is ceasing operations on Saturday after 95 years, citing “falling freight rates and reduced volume.”

FreightTech company Flock Freight’s chief revenue officer has departed after eight months. The company also is cutting positions on its social and creative teams.

Logistics provider Flexport is moving ahead with a second round of layoffs this year.

A 40-year-old Montana trucking company and freight brokerage has shuttered operations, leaving nearly 275 truck drivers and office personnel without jobs.

Owner-operators say Titan Transportation Services Inc., doing business as Sunset Logistics, still hasn’t refunded their $1,000 in escrow or maintenance account funds that were withheld from their paychecks after the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based company abruptly ceased operations on Sept. 29.

About 90 truck drivers and office personnel who worked for Titan Transportation Services Inc., doing business as Sunset Logistics of Grand Rapids, Michigan, say they are owed their final paychecks and escrow after receiving a string of emails from company executives notifying them that the trucking company was closing its doors.

International freight forwarder Flexport is undertaking a second round of mass layoffs this year.

Seattle-based logistics provider Flexe has laid off a third of its workforce.

An 85-year-old Indiana-based trucking and logistics company and its affiliates recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection less than nine months after it was acquired by private-equity firm Transport Acquisitions.

Lisa Celli was excited to start her first day on Jan. 5 as a contractor delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service in the small unincorporated town in California where she and her husband live. However, less than 24 hours after finishing her first route for Ameritrans Express, she received an alarming email stating the contract delivery company was taking “drastic action.”

GXO Logistics has ceased operations and laid off 378 workers at several locations across the country in recent months.

The Department of Labor is investigating Western Global Airlines’ founder for allegedly enriching himself at the expense of employees who bought equity in the company.

UPS Inc. is offering pilots an early retirement package to reduce payroll amid declining package volumes. The integrated parcel and logistics giant confirmed Thursday it wants to trim senior pilots […]

U.S. Postal Service contractor Matheson Flight Extenders (MFE) filed paperwork Thursday stating that it plans to eliminate 305 jobs and close its sorting facility in Chicopee, Massachusetts, by the end of October, bringing to about 1,000 the total job cuts it has announced in recent days.

Moving company WayForth is laying off hundreds and closing operations across eight states following a downturn in business.

U.S. Postal Service contractor Matheson Flight Extenders (MFE), which operates 44 mail sorting and terminal handling services across the country, filed paperwork this week stating that it plans to cut more than 660 jobs at two of its facilities in Atlanta and in Brandywine, Maryland, by Oct. 15.

Freighter operator Western Global got in financial trouble when the overheated air cargo market cooled off last year and nearly shut down this summer before getting a financial lifeline from creditors and filing for bankruptcy.

Western Global Airlines, struggling under a heavy debt load and weak market conditions, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Delaware court.

FedEx Corp. has laid off more than 900 workers at facilities across the country since June.

Western Global Airlines could be on the verge of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

After experiencing two years of record growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jacksonville, Florida-based Surge Transportation, a digital freight brokerage, sought to find a buyer and slashed its rates nearly a year before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday.

After experiencing record sales growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, digital freight brokerage Surge Transportation says it was forced to file for bankruptcy protection as it was unprepared for the abrupt decline in product demand and soaring shipping costs that rocked the transportation industry in April 2022.

A Georgia-based trucking company, which reported a significant drop in revenue this year compared with the previous two years, filed for bankruptcy liquidation on July 14.

Freightos, a digital marketplace for international air and ocean shipping, announced Tuesday that it will reduce staff levels by 13% and lowered its full-year outlook again in an effort to […]

Western Global Airlines has hit hard times, losing Amazon as a primary customer, piling up debt and facing at least two lawsuits.

A former driver for Ameritrans Express, a contract delivery company that hauls mail for the U.S. Postal Service, says he and other workers wonder whether they will be paid after the company filed for bankruptcy protection.

Ameritrans Express LLC, a contract delivery service for the U.S. Postal Service, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy amid claims by some of its contractors that they have not been paid since March.

Amid waning revenue, Amerijet is laying off 15 workers after signing an expensive contract with its pilots.

More than 60 small trucking companies are collectively owed millions of dollars after a Mississippi-based logistics firm folds, files for bankruptcy liquidation.

Electric pickup truck maker Lordstown Motors has filed for bankruptcy while alleging fraud against Foxconn, its former partner.

New details have emerged about Tiger Cool Express’ financial health leading up to the company’s abrupt closure on Tuesday.

Like many FreightTech companies that have laid off workers in recent months, CloudTrucks blames the declining freight market for the job cuts.

Peace Equipment LLC, a company headquartered in Edcouch, Texas, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to rising operating costs and reduced income in the trucking industry.

DHL Supply Chain and GXO Logistics are laying off at least 185 workers in Texas as a result of losing customers.

Freight brokerage firm Coyote Logistics is laying off another round of workers as the freight market continues to slide.

U.S. Xpress has laid off about 150 staffers and reported a hefty loss to the SEC.

Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Lipsey Logistics has confirmed that it was forced to cut a number of jobs as the result of a “constrained and declining freight market.”

Layoffs continue at the FreightTech unicorn, Flock Freight, as 45 employees were fired at a recent all-hands company meeting, four months after 60 workers were let go.

Team drivers for Cromex Inc. of Villa Park, Illinois, say they were stranded for three days in a hotel room, more than 1,000 miles from home, after the owner failed to deliver on his promise to pay drivers and set them up in a new truck.

A Florida-based trucking company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection recently, owing truck drivers back wages.

DFI Systems’ president says soaring lumber prices, the costly decision to move the company’s headquarters during the COVID-19 pandemic and the inability to find new investors was the perfect storm that forced him to lay off 90 workers, including truck drivers, in late March.

It has been a year since I wrote “Why I believe a freight recession is imminent.”

A Miami-based trucking company and freight brokerage, which also owns a CDL training school, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Some 455 truck drivers who worked under the banner of Flagship Transport haven’t heard from their employer in a week.

Ceva Logistics is purging 142 jobs at two of its facilities in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, effective April 22.

A North Carolina trucking company notified more than 200 employees on Tuesday it is ceasing operations.

“The new model is flexible and brings together dedicated support teams highly trained on one or a few shippers’ needs and operating requirements,” said Convoy founder and CEO Dan Lewis.

Former Celadon trucking officials have settled a fraud case with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

An online auction on Tuesday will sell the assets of family-owned Art Mulder & Sons Trucking of Holland, Michigan, two months after the refrigerated LTL carrier ceased operations after 50 years.

Uber Freight is cutting about 3% of its workforce, all of the jobs coming out of its digital brokerage activities.

Ryder System Inc. is set to lay off 801 employees after losing work at an Applied Materials semiconductor plant in Austin, Texas.

Nikola will move battery pack manufacturing to Arizona and files layoffs notice for a former Romeo Power plant.

E-commerce giant Amazon will lay off over 18,000 workers during its current round of job cuts, first reported in November.

New details have emerged about United Furniture’s financial health and why its lender, Wells Fargo Bank, filed a petition on Friday to force the furniture company into Chapter 7 proceedings after its abrupt shutdown.

2022 brought a recession in the trucking industry, but few large trucking companies declared bankruptcy.

Several trucking companies, logistics firms and cold storage facilities are collectively owed millions of dollars after an Iowa-based meat importer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection recently.

Fleet solutions provider Motive has laid off 6% of its workforce, citing slow demand and higher operating costs.

Stellantis has announced it will be closing a Jeep Cherokee assembly plant in Illinois in February, laying off 1,350 workers.

UFI abruptly shuttered in November. Companies have been unable to retrieve their assets from the closed-up facilities.

Family-owned Mid Continent Trucking of Denison, Iowa, notified drivers and employees recently that after 24 years, the refrigerated carrier was ceasing operations two days after Thanksgiving because of worsening economic conditions and tumbling freight rates.

A former United Furniture Industries employee claims the furniture manufacturer, headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi, violated federal law by failing to give 60 days’ notice of its abrupt shutdown to nearly 2,700 employees and truck drivers, who found themselves without jobs two days before Thanksgiving.

Former employees of United Furniture Industries say they were caught unaware overnight after receiving word they were not to report to work Tuesday because their jobs were being immediately terminated “due to unforeseen business circumstances.”

Freon Logistics, a California-based trucking company, has filed for bankruptcy, and some employees protested recently to demand unpaid wages.

Navarro Trucking Group, which pulled intermodal containers out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, has folded and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

GXO Logistics is planning to lay off 262 employees from two warehouse operations in the Dallas area by Dec. 10.

Trucking payments platform AtoB has laid off 30% of its employees, months after raising $155 million in funding.

McClellan Trucking and Duran Transfer, which contract with the U.S. Postal Service to haul mail, have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings for trucking company Wyotrans have taken a rocky turn after two of its largest secured creditors claim they haven’t been paid in two months for leased or rented equipment being used to haul freight and that the carrier is behind on insurance premium payments.

Chattanooga, Tennessee-based U.S. Xpress is cutting another 5% of its corporate workforce in the trucking company’s second round of layoffs in three months.

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday dropped a fraud case against two former Celadon trucking company executives.