Trucking company bankruptcy costs state 524 jobs, 116 locally

The shuttering and subsequent bankruptcy of the national transportation company Yellow Corp. led to 524 lost jobs in the state of Florida, a sliver of the 30,000 jobs cut nationwide.

The Nashville-based company outlined the number of positions eliminated in a letter posted on Florida’s Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification’s database Monday afternoon.

Of the total jobs cut, 97 were in Tampa and 19 in Fort Myers. Elsewhere in Florida, 191 jobs were eliminated in Miami, 114 in Orlando, 45 in Jacksonville, 39 in Boyton Beach and 19 in Ocala.

Each locality was notified separately, but the letters, sent to meet federal WARN Notice requirements, were identical.

In them, the company says it and its affiliates “made the difficult decision to shut down their regular operations on July 30, 2023, permanently close and permanently lay off and consequently terminate the employment of employees at all of their locations.”

The 100-year-old Yellow Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Aug. 6. In its initial filing, it says that despite filing for Chapter 11 which is meant for restructuring it would “immediately commence an orderly and value-maximizing wind-down of (the) businesses.”

According to a story from the Associated Press, the company received $700 million in federal loans during the pandemic. Because of the loans, the U.S. government owns 29.6% of Yellow's assets, according to Axios.

The collapse, the AP reports, came after a nearly yearlong fight with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and “severe financial stress after a long stretch of poor management and strategic decisions dating back decades.”

In its letter to Florida officials, Yellow Corp. says it was hoping secure funds and complete some transaction to prevent shutting down but was unable to.

“Today, it is not common for someone to work at one company for 20, 30, or even 40 years, yet many at Yellow did," Darren Hawkins, the company's CEO, said in a statement on the day bankruptcy filed. 

"For generations, Yellow provided hundreds of thousands of Americans with solid, good-paying jobs and fulfilling careers.”

While these layoffs happened about three weeks ago, they join a growing, and possibly concerning, number of job cuts to hit the area in the past week.

On Aug. 14, Paragon Water Systems announced it is laying off 161 people in the Tampa area, Centrex Revenue Solutions announced it was laying off 71 people in Fort Myers and LGSTX Services announced it was laying off 26 people in Tampa.

And on Aug. 17, Virginia-based moving company WayForth told the state 31 people were losing their jobs locally — 20 in Sarasota and 11 in Fort Myers.