A massive company is now laying off in South Carolina, affecting hundreds of workers, according to fresh WARN data.
FedEx plans a total of four facility closures, which will affect not just those in South Carolina, but workers in North Carolina as well.
The Ship Center shutdowns coming in September will impact a total of 310 employees, according to WARN notices.
The company is shutting down three Ship Centers in the South Carolina cities of West Columbia, Florence and Myrtle Beach, plus another Ship Center in Conover, North Carolina, as it continues to consolidate its network footprint to save costs and increase efficiency, reports Retail Dive.
FedEx said in an emailed statement to Supply Chain Dive that it will offer some affected employees opportunities at other nearby locations, and the company is providing relocation assistance or severance where applicable.
| Facility location | Impacted employees |
|---|---|
| Conover, North Carolina | 69 |
| West Columbia, South Carolina | 134 |
| Florence, South Carolina | 50 |
| Myrtle Beach, South Carolina | 57 |
By cutting facilities and routes that overlap with others, FedEx can get packages to customers in a more efficient manner.
But FedEx’s push to right-size its network is leading to many company couriers losing their jobs.
For example, the Conover closure coming in September will impact 66 couriers, although some workers will remain employed at other locations.
“Decisions of this nature are never made lightly, and are the result of much thought and consideration for the needs of our business,” FedEx said in its statement.
The majority of employees impacted by two Ship Center closures in Colorado and Ohio last year were couriers as well, as was the case with earlier closures in Texas, Georgia and Mississippi.
In a March earnings call, FedEx Executive Vice President and CFO John Dietrich said the company has trimmed its employee ranks by nearly 22,000 over the past year.
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Other Economy News Today
Applications for unemployment benefits now surge to new highs, a sign that the white-hot labor market is starting to cool off.
First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to 231,000, the highest level since August, per CNN.
Thursday’s data also showed that the number of continuing claims, or applications from people who have filed for unemployment for at least one week, was 1.78 million.
That’s an increase of 17,000 from the prior week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The latest numbers come less than a week after the monthly jobs report showed the US economy added just 175,000 positions in April, less than economists expected and a steep drop-off from prior months.
US employers have now added an average of 245,500 jobs per month, versus 2023’s 251,000-per-month average.
Still, hiring remains strong. Although the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% last month, it’s the 27th consecutive month that the jobless rate has held under 4%, matching a streak last seen in the late 1960s.
Weekly jobless claims data tends to be volatile but, while one week’s worth of data “does not a trend make,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds.
“We can no longer be sure that calm seas lie ahead for the US economy if today’s weekly jobless claims are any indication.”
“Company layoffs are picking up, hinting at caution on the part of companies as they weigh the outlook for the second half of the year,” he wrote in a note Thursday.
The Federal Reserve has been battling inflation by raising its key lending rate in the hopes of slowing the economy.
While the labor market has so far resisted those efforts, remaining white hot for the past 18 months despite 11 rate hikes from the central bank, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week that demand has “cooled from its extremely high level of a couple of years ago.”
Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Economics said in a note Thursday: “We’d need to see at least a month of elevated readings to convince us that the trend really has turned.”
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Also Read: A Giant Company Now Announces Unexpected Layoffs in Virginia
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