California Trucking Firms Are Going Under - Shifts in the Industry

Just Dispatched

The latest closure to hit the tape: San Diego–based Epic Lightning Fast Service, a 59-truck Amazon delivery and regional carrier shut down on October 31 after filing a WARN notice in early September. The closure wipes out 116 jobs across drivers, dispatch, and back office, with the company pointing at prolonged freight weakness and margin pressure. 

Family Fleets Squeezed 

Family fleets are feeling it just as sharply. Fresno’s TGS Transportation, a roughly 20-truck drayage carrier, parked its trucks for good on July 31 after four decades in business, citing “challenging freight market conditions” and thanking employees for riding out a brutal year at the ports.

A year earlier, Fontana-based Tony’s Express, a 70-year-old LTL operator, shut its doors under similar pressure. As CEO John Ohle put it, “The current market just didn’t support our ability to operate and be a profitable company, and the cost of fuel in California made it very difficult.” 

Bigger Players React

The big players aren’t immune, immunemune but they are reacting differently. UPS is in the middle of the largest network reconfiguration in its history, planning to cut roughly 20,000 jobs globally while it automates and consolidates its parcel footprint. In California, that strategy translated into two sort shifts being eliminated at the West Sacramento hub and about 350 warehouse workers displaced.

Amazon-aligned operations are also trimming. Delivery service partner Web To Door has announced nearly 200 layoffs across several California locations, a move that tracks with softening e-commerce volumes and tighter contract economics. Up the chain, WARN filings show cuts at CRST’s Boron facility, niche manufacturer L&T Precision in Poway, and temporary furloughs for 150 workers at Silgan Containers’ Modesto can plants. 

The Underlying Market

Underneath the layoff is a familiar pattern: too many trucks chasing too few loads. Spot rates fell hard from their pandemic peaks and have been bumping along the bottom, even as wages, insurance, and equipment costs reset higher. In California, where diesel, real estate, and compliance are all more expensive than the national average, that squeeze shows up faster and hits harder.