U.S. Xpress, on the verge of being acquired by Knight-Swift, recently laid off about 150 employees as its earnings report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed a significantly widened loss for the truckload carrier.

“We did recently make the difficult decision to reduce roles in a few business areas in response to challenging market conditions,” a spokeswoman said in an email to FreightWaves.

The LinkedIn profiles of several U.S. Xpress (NYSE: USX) staffers began showing the layoffs last week. It also had two rounds of layoffs last year.

While the spokeswoman did not offer information on the number of layoffs, sources within Chattanooga, Tennessee-based U.S. Xpress provided the estimate of 150 employees. Most of the employees were in human resources, information technology, back office and the company’s brokerage, with some layoffs also in asset-based areas.

“Our industry is experiencing a prolonged lack of freight demand that has negatively affected trucking logistics companies,” the spokeswoman said. “We are no exception.”

That tough freight market was evident in the earnings filed Wednesday as a 10-Q report with the SEC. With the pending merger with Knight-Swift, no first-quarter earnings news release was issued, nor was there a call with analysts, which is the norm for companies about to be acquired. (For example, TravelCenters of America did not have an earnings call as it prepares to be absorbed into BP.)

The financial numbers that would have been discussed in an earnings call were grim. U.S. Xpress reported an operating loss of $29.9 million for the quarter, a big fall from the just under breakeven figure of $210,000 reported in the first quarter of 2022. The operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2022 was $5.67 million.

Net income widened to a loss of $27.1 million compared to $8.9 million a year ago and a net loss of $9.2 million in the fourth quarter.

Among some of the first-quarter line items that made for a significantly worse performance, revenue prior to fuel surcharge declined to $437.8 million from $464.3 million; salaries, wages and benefits rose to $181.7 million from $169 million; and interest expense increased to $7 million from $3.8 million. Purchased transportation declined to $96.5 million from $150.6 million.

Truckload revenue was actually higher, up to $441.1 million compared to $423.2 million a year ago. But brokerage revenue plummeted to $51.6 million from $93.9 million.

U.S. Xpress closed out the first quarter with cash on hand of $3 million, up from $2.3 million at the end of 2022. But U.S. Xpress’ long-term debt, a key reason for it to become a public company in 2018, was $376.8 million at the end of the first quarter, up from $354.3 million in the fourth quarter.