I Squared Logistics, a delivery contractor operating out of Garner, North Carolina, shut down its facility and eliminated 160 jobs with almost no warning to the drivers and support staff who depended on the work. The closure, tied to the end of the company’s contract with Amazon, left workers scrambling in a region where similar contractor exits have already displaced dozens more. A filing with the N.C. Department of Commerce confirmed the scale of the job losses and the abrupt timeline.
Why 160 Garner delivery jobs vanished overnight
I Squared Logistics, LLC operated from 1201 N. Greenfield Parkway in Garner, Wake County, running last-mile deliveries under Amazon’s Delivery Service Partner program. When the company’s Amazon contract ended, the entire operation folded. The state’s WARN listings include I Squared Logistics with 160 affected workers at that Garner address. Affected roles included delivery drivers and the support staff who kept routes running.
The speed of the shutdown is what stung most. Employees received little notice before the doors closed, according to regional business coverage that described the overnight nature of the closure. North Carolina’s WARN rules require employers above a certain size to notify the state before large layoffs, but the compressed timeline meant workers had almost no runway to line up new positions or understand what benefits they might qualify for.
Local television reporting added further detail, noting that hiring had already slowed before the layoffs and that many drivers were taken by surprise when routes were suddenly pulled. According to ABC11’s account, some employees learned of the shutdown only days before their final shifts, giving them little time to prepare financially or seek comparable delivery work nearby.
This was not an isolated event. A separate Amazon delivery contractor previously shut a Durham facility and cut 75 jobs after its own partnership ended, according to earlier Triangle-area reporting. That pattern raises a pointed question: are these closures clustering in areas where Amazon is expanding its own direct delivery capacity? If Amazon is shifting volume away from independent contractors and toward in-house operations in the same counties, WARN filings should reflect that trend over time. So far, the public record shows at least two contractor shutdowns in the Triangle region, but the state data does not yet confirm a direct link to Amazon’s internal logistics expansion.
State filings and the DSP exit pattern
The I Squared Logistics layoff was documented through North Carolina’s WARN process, which is designed to give state officials and affected communities some advance notice when large job losses are coming. The N.C. Department of Commerce maintains a searchable online archive of these notices, where the I Squared entry lists the Garner site, Wake County, and the 160 displaced workers. Because the repository is updated as employers file, it offers one of the clearest windows into how often logistics and warehouse jobs are being cut across the state.
Amazon’s Delivery Service Partner model relies on independent contractors who hire their own drivers, lease vans, and handle delivery routes under Amazon’s operational standards. These small businesses typically depend on Amazon for nearly all of their volume. When a DSP contract ends, the contractor often has no other major client to absorb the workforce, and the business can become unsustainable almost overnight. In past closures elsewhere in North Carolina, Amazon has sometimes directed affected workers toward openings at other DSPs, but the company has not publicly confirmed whether it made similar offers to the 160 workers in Garner.
No direct statements from I Squared Logistics management have surfaced explaining the specific reasons the Garner contract ended or whether the business attempted to find replacement clients. Amazon, for its part, has not issued a public comment specific to this shutdown, leaving current and former employees to speculate about whether performance metrics, route realignments, or broader cost-cutting decisions played the decisive role. Without that clarity, workers are left to navigate the fallout on their own, relying on unemployment benefits, personal savings, and a tight local job market that is already absorbing other displaced delivery drivers.
For policymakers and economic development officials, the I Squared Logistics closure underscores the volatility built into contractor-heavy delivery networks. Jobs that appear plentiful when package volumes are high can disappear quickly when a single corporate contract is not renewed. As more WARN filings emerge from the logistics sector, they will provide a running record of how that risk is distributed across communities like Garner-and how much of the burden ends up falling on drivers who had little say in the decisions that cost them their livelihoods.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
