C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. BB #:100586 Eden Prairie, MN, laid off about 650 employees last week, just days after releasing a disappointing third quarter report.
According to FreightWaves, Robinson president and CEO Bob Biesterfeld said the company did not forecast truckload demand declining as quickly as it did as well as spot market and contract rates.
“We got ahead of ourselves in terms of head count,” Biesterfeld said.
The company released a statement last week that said:
“As we said last week in our Q3 earnings, changes in market conditions, coupled with many successful endeavors on our digital roadmap directed at scaling our model to be more efficient, mean we are in a position to reduce our overall cost structure.
“As a result, we’re eliminating some positions at C.H. Robinson. These are not easy decisions, because we recognize the significant contribution of the impacted employees. We have tried to approach this with as much respect and empathy for our former colleagues as possible and are providing transition assistance.”
In early November, the Wall Street Journal also noted the logistics slow down.
The story said that warehouse and storage companies have added more than 400,000 jobs in two years ending in 2021, but the most recent jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed these companies dropped 20,000 jobs from September to October, which was the fourth straight month of job declines and most since April 2020 during pandemic lockdowns.
However, the WSJ story said trucking companies defied the logistics employment pullback in October, adding 13,200 positions, and reversing a decline of 9,500 jobs the previous month.
