Averitt Express will lay off 55 workers in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 1, when a contract with Costco Wholesale expires, the carrier said in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice.
The Cookeville, Tennessee-based trucking company hopes to offer transfers to the more than 50 drivers and four other workers based at Costco’s West Palm Beach distribution center. The contract with Costco “will not be renewed,” it said in the June 26 notice.
All affected Averitt employees were notified verbally in late May and in writing late last month, the company said.
The drivers, site manager, frontline leader and two administrative staffers are not represented by a union and do not have bumping rights, according to the notice.
Layoffs have been a harsh reality across the trucking industry as carriers have struggled through a two-year downturn in freight rates.
It is not clear why the contract is not being renewed or which carrier will take over the account.
The wholesaler’s decision not to renew the contract follows significant investments by several other trucking firms in the Southeast and across the country.
