Major ELD maker’s reason for laying off 349 should give truckers cause for concern

ELD provider KeepTruckin has laid off a large percentage of its workforce due to worry about the economic impact of Coronavirus on trucking.

ELD and fleet management solutions provider KeepTruckin laid off 349 workers — about 18% of the company’s total workforce — on March 31.

The workers were informed of their immediate termination by a letter from company CEO Shoaib Makani.

Makani says that the company did “everything they could” to avoid laying off employees.

In the letter, Makani explains that the decision to cut jobs was directly related to the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic.

He writes:

It is impossible to predict the full impact of COVID-19 on the global economy and how that will flow through to our customers, but it is clear that the economic output in North America is contracting rapidly. Our data science team has observed a 10% reduction in vehicle activity over 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 revenue to contract.

In addition to the layoffs, Makani announced that he would take no pay during the Coronavirus crisis and that co-founders Ryan Johns and Obaid Khan would take 50% pay cuts.

The company is also cancelling employee bonuses for 2019 and cutting salary by 10% for all employees earning at least $50,000.

According to Forbes, KeepTruckin reached a valuation of $1.4 billion in April 2019.