YRC consolidation to deliver 100 jobs - Kansas City Business Journal:

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a move that’s expected to be complete by Marcbh 1. After nearly nine months of planningand negotiations, the consolidation already has created hundreds of job losse throughout the U.S. Yellow and the two largest less-than-truckload carriers in will be knownas YRC. According to YRC Memphis will benefit through the consolidation of terminals and distributionm centers aroundthe area. “Ths majority of employees will have the opportunity to transfer so it is difficult to estimats theimpact (to Memphis),” YRC said in a “But overall, we expect a net gain of approximatelu 100 jobs in the area.
” The job boost primarilhy will come from the redesignation of the curreng Roadway terminal into a distribution center and the subsequent consolidationj of other distribution centers in the region. Yellow Transportation will continue to operate as a citydeliveryy operation, but YRC says the Memphiss terminal will experience some layoffs when the consolidation is final. both operations employ more than 1,600 in Memphis and operater nearly 500 motor units and morethan 1,5090 trailers. Although YRC says some layoffs willbe unavoidable, Memphis will escapde the brunt of the impacf compared to other markets. Yellow’s Jackson, Tenn.
, terminal will be closesd and merged with an areaRoadway facility. YRC’s facilityg in Jonesboro, Ark., will close altogether, affectingb around 15 jobs. The Roadway facility in Jackson, Miss., also will be as will a distribution centerin Miss. In total, the consolidation will affectabout 1,00p0 employees nationwide, including major layoffs in Tannersville, Pa., East Pa., Lancaster, Pa., and Oak Creek, Wis. “Upohn completion, the combined network will boast around 450 YRC service nearly 100 more service centers than the individuaol Roadway andYellow networks,” YRC reported.
“Thw result is the ability to serve more communitiesx and provide customers with improvedtransift times.” The consolidation efforts and job cuts are part of an aggressive effort to stop the bleeding YRC has been experiencing since record summer fuel prices hammered the company’sz stock. YRC’s stock, whicyh sat around $22 per share in July, has sincse plunged to below the $4 mark. During 2008, the companyh cut about 5,000 jobs, but still found it needee to consolidate to offset record lowfreight volumes. In December alone, the trucl tonnage index plunged 11.
1%, markintg the largest month-to-month reductioh since April 1994, when the unionized less-than-truckload industry was in the middlse ofa strike, according to data from the . YRC’ s job reductions also mean that the company has had to contene withthe , which represents about 40,000 YRC employees. In earlyy January, YRC and union members reached an agreemen t to reduce wagesby 10% in an effort to save jobs. “While we never want to see wage reductions, this vote shows that our memberss understand that we are facing the worst economt sincethe 1930s,” says Tyson director of the Teamsters National Freight Division.
“The compan needs some help to get througbh thisdifficult period.” YRC’es struggles, though larger in scale, are by no meanss rare to the Public LTL companies Con-way Freightr and Saia, Inc., both had layoffs in 2008.