Layoff wave: FedEx laying off more than 10% of its management ranks

FedEx Corp is laying off more than 10 per cent of its global management staffers as the delivery company faces a shipping slowdown, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

Raj Subramaniam, the chief executive, announced the company was streamlining several teams and responsibilities and shrinking the number of its officer and director ranks in an email to employees on Wednesday.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the corporation refuses to specify how many positions will be lost.

Through normal attrition, a hiring freeze, and other head-count initiatives, the corporation has already reduced its US staff by 12,000 since the start of the current fiscal year in June 2022.

Global employees

It had more than 5,50,000 employees globally, according to its most recent financial statement in December.

"Unfortunately, this was a necessary action to become a more efficient, agile organisation," said Subramaniam, adding that "It is my responsibility to look critically at the business and determine where we can be stronger by better aligning the size of our network with customer demand."

FedEx is the latest large US corporation, from Microsoft to 3M, to announce plans to trim its workforce as businesses brace for slower economic growth this year and a pullback in spending by consumers and corporations, according to the financial newspaper.

Demand decline

To counter a steep decline in package deliveries, FedEx said in September that it was freezing recruiting, eliminating 90 FedEx office locations, storing some cargo planes, decreasing Sunday ground operations, and closing five corporate offices. When asked if it was laying off workers, the company remained mum.

According to the financial newspaper, the company stated in December that it continued to see weak package demand and that it had found an extra USD 1 billion in cost savings.

As demand decreased in the same month, FedEx Freight added that some employees were temporarily placed on leave.

Several of FedEx's divisions, including Ground, Express, Freight, International, Logistics, Services, and Dataworks, have come under fire from some analysts for performing similar tasks.