Flexport to Slash 20 Percent of Staff—Again
A major cash infusion wasn’t enough to stave off another round of layoffs at Flexport.
The supply chain management and logistics firm is slated to lay off 20 percent of its workforce over the coming weeks, sources familiar with the matter told The Information on Friday.
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The news comes days after Flexport announced it was deepening its partnership with longtime e-commerce partner Shopify through a $260-million investment. The Canadian firm, which sold its own logistics arm, e-commerce fulfillment technology and last-mile delivery business to Flexport in May of last year, owns a 17-percent stake in the business.
Months of lackluster performance forced Flexport to conduct two rounds of sizable layoffs in 2023. Last January , it cut about 20 percent of its global staff, or about 640 roles. Nine months later, the freight forwarder made another 20-percent reduction, amounting to roughly 600 roles out of a total headcount of 3,300.
Returning CEO Ryan Petersen announced the layoffs last fall in a note to employees, saying the cuts would allow Flexport to regain profitability and build upon its $1 billion net-cash stockpile. The layoffs would give the firm flexibility in regaining its foothold without raising prices for customers, he added.
Flexport continued to invest in developing new capabilities throughout the fourth quarter. In late October, Petersen announced it had paid a “modest” sum to acquire defunct digital trucking marketplace Convoy’s technology stack. The goal was to expand Flexport’s trucking brokerage unit, which coordinates trucking shipments to be delivered to customers’ warehouses.
“With more than 400,000 truck drivers and 80,000 carriers in Convoy ’s network, we will be able to tap into an incredible supply of trucking service providers for our customers,” Petersen told staff in an internal memo.
The freight forwarder then announced it was launching an initiative to decarbonize air freight alongside Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform Chooose , which integrates climate action into customer experiences. Flexport.org would allow its customers to reduce lifecycle emissions by supporting sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), it announced in November.
Those ventures may not have moved the needle enough, however, as the company once valued at $8 billion is again putting one-fifth of its workforce on the chopping block.
Flexport did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
