The layoffs at Flexport are hitting the company’s Seattle-area office, with 165 employees affected, according to a new filing Monday with the Washington state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) system.
The logistics giant last week announced a 20% company-wide layoff as part of a restructuring. The company did not reveal employee data. CNBC pegged total headcount before the cuts at around 3,500 people, so about 700 were affected.
Flexport has more than 350 employees in the Seattle area, according to LinkedIn.
The company confirmed to GeekWire that it will maintain the Bellevue office, described as “one of our main technology and product development hubs.”
“Part of Flexport’s restructuring philosophy was to create an organizational structure that would best serve the needs of our customers — from enterprises to SMBs — and enable us to move quickly,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Our tech and product teams in Bellevue are integral to that mission, and we’ll continue investing in the solutions and tools to enable customer success and growth.”
Flexport opened its Bellevue hub in 2019, just after it raised $1 billion.
The company is going through a tumultuous period. Former longtime Amazon exec Dave Clark, who joined Flexport last year after a 23-year career with Amazon and was CEO, departed in a surprise move last month.
Several other ex-Amazonians, including many based in the Seattle area, have also left the company in recent weeks.
Flexport founder Ryan Petersen, who is now CEO, wrote in a memo to employees last week that the cuts will help the company get back to profitability without raising prices or putting its balance sheet at risk.
The company had a separate 20% layoff in January.
Flexport launched in 2013 out of San Francisco, where it is based. The company aims to disrupt traditional freight forwarding companies with a digital-first approach. It offers services including ocean, air, truck and rail freight, drayage and cartage, warehousing, customs and compliance, financing and insurance, and more.
The freight market slowdown is impacting various logistics startups. Seattle-based Flexe, which became a “unicorn” last year after raising $119 million, last month laid off 33% of its staff.
Seattle digital trucking marketplace Convoy, another unicorn, has laid off employees several times over the past year.
It’s a different environment than 2021, when funding to logistics startups nearly doubled year-over-year amid a pandemic-driven surge in online shopping and higher freight volumes.
The broader tech downturn spurred thousands of layoffs across the tech sector, though cuts have slowed in recent months.
Story updated with statement from Flexport.
