Laid off from Expeditors.

What Expeditors layoffs have meant for employees

What set 2026 apart was how the jobs went. When Expeditors slimmed down in 2023, it was largely as people left and weren't replaced, and this time the company chose the jobs, in one group, with dates attached. Watching a team thin out over a year and hearing on one day in June that your own job is ending are different experiences, and the second is what Global Technology staff got. For anyone who stayed through lean years because the company's record made their job feel safe, that can land harder than the count suggests, even though the company now describes that record as a practice rather than a policy.

Pay at Expeditors is built to move with profits. The company describes its pay as low base salaries topped by bonuses paid out of pre-tax operating income, with the bonus pool rising and falling with results, and its March 2024 8-K said salaries and related costs fell 17% in 2023, largely from lower bonuses and commissions. If you've been offered severance, it's worth asking whether it's figured on base salary alone or counts any bonus or commission, and whether a bonus you were on track to earn this year still gets paid.

The company's explanation and its arithmetic arrived together. CFO David Hackett called it a strategic restructuring "not driven by cost reduction" in the second-quarter release and, in the same statement, put the expected savings near $50 million a year. Revenue that quarter rose 32% and operating income 41%, and a week later the company's written answers to investors said again that the restructuring "was not about cost." If you were let go in a quarter like that, anger is a reasonable response, and the company's own account calls the cut a modernization choice.

For the people in this restructuring, the news came weeks or months before the last day. Employees would keep receiving any pay and benefits due to them until their employment ended, the Washington notice said, and everyone affected got the Employment Security Department's contact information. If you're in Washington and your date is set, our Washington unemployment benefits page covers what filing involves once the job ends, and the Washington layoffs page covers the state's other help for people losing work. If you've been offered a package and are weighing a job that would start before you leave, it's worth asking whether any part of the package carries a stay-through condition like the one the company's second-quarter 10-Q describes for part of its termination benefits, which date that condition names, and what your own documents say happens if you leave before it.

Expeditors' stated objective is to decouple headcount growth from revenue growth over the long term, and its August 2026 8-K called the restructuring the most direct way to keep investing in technology talent, capabilities and solutions. The CFO, according to Sourcing Journal, attributed the company's productivity gains in May to artificial intelligence deployments. If you're in technology and would consider going back, it's worth asking a former manager which skills the modernization work calls for, since the company says it's still investing in that talent.

About two years before the cut, in that same 2024 filing, Expeditors called information systems headcount the only area it was still investing in, noting that it builds its core operating systems in-house and keeps connecting them to carriers and customers. The cut then came in that group. If you're still in Global Technology, a company's plan to invest in a function says little about any one job in it, and that's worth weighing as you make your own plans. If you're looking for your next role, that in-house work is worth describing in plain terms, since building the systems a global forwarder runs on says more than a title does.

A sourced history of Expeditors layoffs

• June 2026, Global Technology restructuring

  Expeditors International of Washington, Inc. told about 230 Global Technology employees at five Washington sites on June 8, its Washington notice said, that their jobs would end between August 8 and December 31. Developers, testers and analysts, The Loadstar reported, were called into meetings and told their positions were being eliminated.

What to do if you're laid off from Expeditors

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Expeditors's biggest hubs: Washington. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Expeditors's hub states run: Washington, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.