- Swift Logistics, a brokerage and asset-based logistics provider, announced it is closing its York, Pennsylvania warehouse and 56 employees will be laid off.
- Swift Logistics is an entity within Knight-Swift, the fourth-largest trucking company in the US by revenue.
- Trucking has faced significant headwinds in 2019, and 4,200 truck drivers lost their jobs in September alone.
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Swift Logistics, a brokerage and asset-based logistics provider, announced layoffs this week.
According to a letter sent to Pennsylvania's Department of Labor and Industry, Swift Logistics will close its warehouse in York, Pennsylvania effective Dec. 31, 2019.
All 56 employees in that warehouse will be laid off permanently.
Swift Logistics is an entity within Knight-Swift, the fourth-largest trucking company in the US by revenue. The company did not immediately respond to inquiries from Business Insider.
Knight-Swift announced third-quarter earnings on Oct. 23, when the trucking giant disclosed adjusted operating income in Q3 2019 had plunged 27.4% from 2018.
A downturn is hitting the trucking industry - and now even large employers are get slammed
Trucking has faced significant headwinds this year. Trucking has been in a recession since the first half of 2019, according to ACT Research.
In the first six months of 2019, around 640 trucking companies went bankrupt, according to industry data from Broughton Capital LLC. That's more than triple the amount of bankruptcies from the same period last year - 175.
America slashed 9,300 trucking payrolls in September and August alone.
The recession in trucking has especially affected small carriers, who operate largely on the spot market. Trucking loads can either be picked up on demand through the spot market or through a pre-arranged contract. The contract market comprises the vast majority of the trucking market, according to the American Trucking Associations.
Spot market rates have crashed in 2019, while contract market rates haven't seen the same dip.
But these layoffs from Swift Logistics suggests again that the trucking industry's contraction is impacting large companies, too.
Roadrunner, the 31st-largest trucker in the US, announced on Monday that it was cutting 10% of its workforce - all of which are in its "unprofitable" dry van sector.
Cold Carriers, a refrigerated trucking company with more than 400 truck drivers, filed for bankruptcy last week; it will continue operations as it restructures its debt obligations. Industry leaders like J.B. Hunt and Schneider all slashed their annual outlooks this year.