The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The truck driving industry has always been one of high turnover. Drivers would leave one company for another for any reason from .01 a mile to an additional .50 on an added drop. I was sitting here internet surfing and noticed a lot of companies are now boasting "low driver turnover." That's good, huh? Everyone wants to work for a stable company, right?

My next stop was etrucker.com... they always have the latest news and this is what I found...

*From etrucker.com, Avery Vise, 11-20-09*   Payroll employment among for-hire trucking companies in October dropped 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from September levels – slightly more than the decline the month before. Employment is down 9.3 percent from October 2008, according to preliminary figures released Friday, Nov. 6, by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With the estimated 7,500 jobs lost in October, the trucking industry has lost more than 91,000 jobs since the end of 2008 – a decline of 6.8 percent. Job cuts since July 2008 – just before the current decline – total 141,400. The BLS numbers reflect all payroll employment in for-hire trucking, but they don’t include trucking-related jobs in other industries, such as a truck driver for a private fleet.

Within 16 months the trucking industry has lost 141, 400 jobs. No wonder driver turnover is at an all-time low. The industry, on average, has a lost approximately 300 jobs per DAY (including Sunday) for 16 months.

The trucking industry was one of the last stricken industries when the economy fell last year. People still have to have certain essentials for basic survival which means we have to get it to you. Merchandise must move from point A to B. Rice grown in Arkansas must get to California and oranges from Florida must get to Maine.

However; trucking companies are having to get very creative in these down times because the demand market is determining the rates shippers are willing to pay to move freight. There is less freight to move, people aren't buying as much, and this drives freight hauling charges down. Trucking companies are going on a more regional basis or hiring more teams. The companies can move a higher volume of cheap freight in a tight radius (regional runs) and they can move more expensive freight cross country twice as fast with a team truck.

Neither of us relish the thought of running a regional route, but a job is a job and only the strong proactive trucking companies will survive and only the drivers that are willing to adjust will survive.