EVO Transportation To Close Austin Site, Cut 104 Local Jobs
AUSTIN, TX — Phoenix-based EVO Transportation and Energy Services Inc. plans to permanently close its Austin facility in a move that will result in the loss of more than 100 workers, according to a regulatory filing made public on Friday.
Company officials alerted the Texas Workers Commission of the upcoming facility closure in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requiring firms employing at least 100 workers to provide a 60-day notice of furloughs. According to the filing, the company will shut down local operations by Jan. 9, 2021, resulting in 104 job cuts at its North Austin job site at 9807 Brown Lane.
In related correspondence to regulators obtained by Patch, a company officials wrote the upcoming layoff were "...caused by a large client unexpectedly notifying EVO that it had chosen a new contractor."
According to its website, EVO is a nationwide transportation operator for the U.S. Postal Service. According to the trade publication Freight Waves, the company at one time operated a national fleet of some 1,100 tractor-trailers with an employment base of as many as 1,400 workers.
In May, the trade publication reported the company was asked to return $10 million it had received under the federal Paycheck Protection Program. U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, chairman of the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, told EVO Transportation CEO Tom Abood PPP were not intended to benefit companies like his. "We did not intend for these funds to be used by large corporations that have a substantial investor base and access to capital markets,” Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, wrote at the time.
Despite the rebuke, the company chose to keep the money, defending it stance in a statement. “As an essential service provider to the United States Postal Service and other shipping customers, the payroll funding enabled EVO to continue its operations at a time of financial strain and severe market dislocation,” EVO officials wrote. “EVO is made up of multi-generational American businesses employing drivers, dispatchers, mechanics and support personnel who have served USPS and other shippers for decades.”
According to data from NASDAQ, the stock exchange on which the company trades its shares, EVO Transportation reported $64 million in revenue for is fiscal year 2019 — an exponential increase from the $25 million in revenue reported the prior year and even greater than the year-end 2018 revenue of $2 million.
This article originally appeared on the Austin Patch
