
KeepTruckin lays off 349 employees citing “reduction of vehicle activity” as COVID fears impact trucking
KeepTruckin, the company that produces one of the most well known electronic logging devices for drivers has announced the layoff of 349 employees, along with some serious cuts for the remaining employees, citing COVID-19’s impact on the global economy and the trucking industry.
In a letter sent to company employees dated March 31st, 2020, KeepTruckin’s CEO Shoaib Makani wrote that he was laying off “349 employees, 18% of our global team members.” The letter goes on to explain the reasoning behind the layoffs, ““Our data science team has observed a 10% reduction in vehicle activity in our network over the past two weeks, with the hardest-hit regions declining by more than 20%. If this pandemic spreads across North America, we are facing an extended quarantine that will inevitably increase churn, lower rates of new customer acquisition and cause our total annual recurring revenue to contract.”
According to FreightWaves, in an email, Makani provided more details on the downturn. “He revised the letter’s statement on the size of recent declines to say that KeepTruckin’s data science team has seen a 12% drop in activity over the company’s network in the past two weeks. New England and the West Coast have been hit by drops of more than 20%”
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Also according to the FW article and email from the CEO, “KeepTruckin’s revenue is growing on a month to month basis, but they “anticipate a meaningful increase in churn in April and May due to small trucking companies going out of business or pausing their operations, and lower rates of new customer acquisition,” Makani wrote to FW. “The combination of those two could result in a decline in our total revenue.”
KeepTruckin also told employees that they are taking a series of other “actions” to protect against COVID-19 impacts, saying they will not be paying out the 2019 company bonuses, reducing salaries of all employees who make over $50k per year by 10%. They are “aggressively looking for opportunities to reduce costs across the organization”, including software.
The layoffs reportedly affected employees in the San Francisco headquarters along with Nashville, TN office locations.