IE logistics jobs keep falling as the ports run near record volume

Two logistics employers recently filed to cut IE workers. France-based Geodis will permanently lay off 238 people at its Rialto facility by early July, and Illinois-based CJ Logistics America is cutting 71 at a Fontana warehouse, both under state WARN filings.

The filings land on a sector already contracting. Between February and March 2026, the IE's trade, transportation and utilities sector lost about 2,600 jobs, roughly 2,200 of them in transportation and warehousing, according to state employment data. The broader trade-transportation-utilities category sat about 1.5% below year-ago levels in January, per federal payroll figures.

That weakness runs against what's happening at the ports the IE exists to serve. The Port of Long Beach moved 842,030 container units in May, up 31.7% from a year earlier and its third-busiest May on record. Much of that jump is a favorable comparison to last spring, when tariff uncertainty pulled volumes down sharply — year-to-date, Long Beach is up just 0.2%. But the headline number is high, and the warehouses behind it are not staffing up to match.

For operators, the gap is the signal. The old reflex — port volume up, IE hiring up — is not holding this cycle. IEGO has described the regional logistics picture as a "compound crisis," a freight-recession adjustment from the post-COVID overbuild rather than a tariff shock, and the monthly job prints have stayed choppy and net-negative even in months when container counts climbed.

The near-term read points the same way. National port forecasters expect import volumes to soften in the back half of 2026 as front-loaded cargo clears, which would remove even the volume tailwind that hasn't translated into jobs anyway. For anyone staffing a distribution operation, the planning case is a sector that has stopped adding workers and is still filing to cut them — regardless of what the port headlines say.