FedEx is conducting more layoffs and facility closures to close out 2024, shuttering a ship center in Durham, N.C. and cutting headcount at a similar facility in neighboring Raleigh.
The delivery company will lay off 218 employees at the Raleigh ship center, which will remain open. The Durham closure will impact 123 employees.
The Memphis, Tenn.-based logistics giant filed Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notices in North Carolina on Tuesday. According to the notices, the effective date for both the layoffs and the closure is Feb. 3, 2025.
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According to a Thursday report from local news affiliate KAIT News in Jonesboro, Ark., some layoffs will also occur at a shipping center in the town “early next year.”
“FedEx regularly evaluates its network and makes adjustments to align with the evolving needs of the business,” said a FedEx spokesperson in a statement, alluding to the company’s Drive consolidation plan and integration of its ground, express and services units.
The Drive framework is designed to save the logistics provider $6 billion by 2027 and includes the Network 2.0 strategy, which is designed to consolidate the FedEx delivery network with fewer stations and routes and increase shipping efficiency.
In a September earnings call, Raj Subramaniam, president and CEO of FedEx, said the company has reduced pickup and delivery costs roughly 10 percent in markets where it has fully rolled out Network 2.0.
“Decisions of this nature are the result of much thought and consideration for maintaining the high level of service expected from our customers and other needs of our business,” the spokesperson said.
Certain team members will be offered opportunities at other FedEx locations and receive relocation assistance, or get severance pay as part of the layoff, according to the rep.
The North Carolina and Arkansas staff cuts are the latest of many across FedEx amid the ongoing reorganization, with a reported 300 employees being let go in November, and hundreds more prior to that with the closure of various other ship centers in the U.S.
Chief financial officer John Dietrich signaled in the September earnings call that there would be more job cuts, noting that FedEx would “continue to optimize our staffing and enhance efficiencies across all our segments.”
Overall employment has dwindled as the reorganization since Network 2.0 was first established in June 2022. As of May 31, the logistics giant had approximately 505,000 full-time and part-time employees, down 7.7 percent from 547,000 employees on that date two years prior.
DHL Supply Chain, the third-party logistics (3PL) wing of the transportation giant, also is laying off 163 workers in a warehouse in Tracy, Calif.
A WARN notice indicated those layoffs will take place Dec. 31. These job cuts come amid the company’s shuttering of two Houston-area warehouses in Missouri City and Sugar Land, Texas. These closures will affect 53 workers across both facilities, which will permanently close Jan. 13. Another DHL facility that serves Carhartt in Canal Winchester, Ohio will close in April, affecting 173 employees.
Another 3PL firm, Scranton, Pa.-based ID Logistics US Inc., is repositioning 108 of its employees effective Dec. 31.
The company filed a WARN notice on Oct. 31 designating the move as a series of layoffs. But according to Bob Durkin, the president of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce, the workers are not losing their jobs. Each worker will be offered other jobs within ID Logistics, either in the Scranton region or another location.
“It’s not as dire as it looks like on paper,” Durkin told the Scranton Times. “The bottom line is if they lose a particular customer, it might have an impact like this. Then, next month, they might pick up another customer to replace it.”
U.S.-based employers announced 57,727 job cuts across industries in November, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
That number represents a significant 26.8 percent surge in headcount reduction from the 45,510 cuts announced in the same month in 2023, and up 3.8 percent from the 55,597 cuts in the month prior.
However, logistics employment has managed to stay on an even keel even as companies like FedEx, UPS and DHL make their cuts.
The transportation and warehousing sector, which includes employees in subsectors like trucking and couriers, has seen an increase in employees since last November, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
On a preliminary, seasonally adjusted basis, there were 6,627,200 employees in transportation and warehousing in November 2024, a 1.4 percent increase of 88,300 employees from the 6,538,900 a year ago.
Couriers and messengers added 17,200 jobs, while warehouse and storage employees stayed flat, with roughly 100 fewer jobs compared to a year ago.
The BLS data indicates more hiring is occurring across industries, with non-farm employment rising by 227,000 jobs in the month.
