How can you tell when a company is about to go out of business?

Best way to know is ask the owner. If he gets offended or gives you some Bull then you know its time to find a new company or wait and collect unemployment for a few weeks I would find a new trucking company as you know there are tons of companies waiting.

 

When the gates to the yard that were never closed in 5 years are closed and padlocked with a very big mean looking guy carrying a shotgun and 3 GERMAN SHEPHARD dogs wandering around the yard is how I found out once. Company paid all the employees up to date and released all O/O trucks from the yard the next day, never a sign of problems but turned out it had been brewing for some time.

 

Consolidated Freightways did not shut down as much as they just handed all their freight to their non union division CCX which is now Conway.

Just sayin'

Biggest thing I seen was ezpass starts showing yellow alot, shops and vendors not getting paid and complaining combined with dispatchers just not caring what you do anymore and quitting out of the blue (rats leaving the ship).

Take the money and run.

 

all of sudden checks are late

 

To the OP: if the company is traded on a US exchange, their public filings say a lot. Decreasing earnings, increasing debt, liquidating assets, increasing costs of capital, insider selling, restating results, frequent losses of upper management, etc.

CF had lost money in the 7 quarters preceeding their bankruptcy & had been declining before that. Plus they were unable to certify their most recent financial results -- a massive red flag. Anyone who was surprised had his head in the sand:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/03/business/consolidated-freightways-nears-collapse.html

 

A sudden and intense focus on finding ways NOT to pay drivers for work performed can be a tipoff. One such example you may encounter at local gigs or hourly-paid outfits..."We're not going to be paying you to perform your pretrip and post-trip inspections, but you still have to be on the yard 30 minutes before shift start".

 

Wow some crazy stories in here..
Honestly ya never know. Keep the savings account stacked and have a back up plan just incase.

 

Honestly you just will never know. There's no such thing as job security in this industry. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.