Remember not that long ago when truck companies were begging for drivers? Now they are laying them off in droves. Transportation companies are letting people go and not even paying them the money they owe.
To me that looks like a sign the economy is tanking. Early indicators are that this past Christmas season was a huge disappointment to retailers. Amazon just let 10,000 people go. Considering the size of their workforce it’s a drop in the bucket, but could be the beginning of a trend.
Apparently a lot of people are dealing with inflation by buying only what’s necessary. It’s also hard to keep buying stuff when you’ve lost your job. Duh. Captain Obvious here. However, some economists seem baffled by facts like that.
If you want job where you never have to be right you could be an economist. Failure in that field doesn’t appear to have any downsides.
But I digress.
Back to trucking. It’s not the great job it used to be in the 70s, that’s for sure. The industry has been pushing out experienced drivers and replacing them with cheaper new hires. Now it looks like even those new people will be let go.
There’s still a lot of stuff that has to move by truck. Food and fuel come mind. On the other hand, there’s a lot of things people don’t need, like cheap plastic junk from China. People are cutting back on nonessential purchases.
Are there any upsides to this? It should reduce diesel demand and that should bring the price down. No idea if that’ll happen or how long it will take. Fuel supplies have supply side pressures that could negate the lower demand.
2023 already looks challenging.
-Sixbears
Amazon, is that a reduction in the holiday force or general layoff? Historically the three big, now four big delivery outfits, USPS, FEDEX, UPS, and Amazon hire to the max for the holiday season then lay them all off directly afterwards. However, the past couple years have been wacked out.
ReplyDeleteI must admit I'm not sure. I don't remember the article where I got that statistic -of if they were even specific. I seem to remember it being a general layoff, but like I said -misplaced the original article.
DeleteI found the article, Last year they laid off ten thousand people, so far this year seven more. 17000 total lay offs. Might go up. It's a total for two years, still it's a general lay off thing not seasonal. So, that sucks. Also a reason our deliveries have slowed down.
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