YRC shifts some collections work to India
YRC Worldwide Inc. plans to close its revenue management center in Topeka, Kan., by the end of the year and shift some of the 86 jobs to an operation in India, Chief Executive Officer William D. Zollars said after speaking to several hundred members of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals meeting in Denver.
Zollars said other workers would be laid off because there are fewer freight payments to collect as transportation demand declines.
The Kansas City Business Journal first reported the shut down of the collections office. About 50 employees will be transferred to YRC’s Overland Park, Kan., headquarters, which has a similar center.
The cost-cutting move comes as the trucking and logistics holding company struggles with an industry-wide downturn in freight volumes and its own problems trying to integrate several trucking companies it acquired in the past four years. YRC recently warned that it would post an operating loss in the third quarter, although net income would still remain positive due to gains from restructuring several retirement plans. The guidance, however, came before the financial crisis and roiled the economy even more.
The freight transportation conglomerate moved slightly ahead of break even in the second quarter after posting more than $770 million losses in the fourth quarter of 2007 and first quarter of 2008. YRC stock has tumbled 77 percent in the past year, closing Wednesday at $6.32 per share.
Last month Zollars said the company would cut 200 non-union jobs in response to soft business. Early this year, YRC shuttered 27 terminals in the South and Southwest operated by subsidiaries USF Reddaway and USF Holland and eliminated 1,100 workers. ' Eric Kulisch