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Over two hundred employees faced layoffs in cities throughout Ohio – mainly Richfield, Columbus, and Toledo. One of the largest trucking companies in the country, New England Motor Freight Inc., is closing its doors and stopping all operations. This included its facility in Sharonville, which led to all the layoffs.

The company was privately owned and based out of Elizabeth, NJ. Therefore, all, almost sixty, workers faced layoffs at the Sharonville office. This information comes from a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification. Then, the layoffs leaked over to the other city offices… Richfield and Columbus, which had over 90 workers, and Toledo, with 35 workers.

The layoffs were planned to finish by the beginning of the month. NEMF’s chief restructuring officer, Vincent Colistra, issued the initial notice of the closures back in mid-February. He sent this notice to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Just a few days before that, the company filed for bankruptcy protection.

In fact, the company owes in the tens of millions to creditors. But… why did this happen this year? NEMF’s bankruptcy occurred after one of, as some say, the better years for trucking companies. In fact, it was the largest trucking bankruptcy in the last seventeen years. The last big trucking bankruptcy occurred in 2002, with Consolidated Freightways Corp.

NEMF was the 19^th largest carrier in the United States. Back in 2017, they had a revenue of $402 million. This information comes from SJ Consulting Group.

But now, hundreds of people in the Ohio area are out of work due to the bankruptcy. What do you think led to this happening? With a shortage of drivers in the industry and companies looking to make more money on shipments, is the closing of New England Motor Freight Inc. just an anomaly?