Swift stock is crashing, blames it on them losing drivers and driver shortage

One thing that is absolutely ridiculous is they won't hire anyone or put anyone through a training program if they don't have a PERFECT no gap employment record. How many people with a perfect no gap employment record are gonna want to go live out on the road in a small tin can for pretty low wages? NOT MANY! Your plant moved to Mexico, you lost your job, so you took your savings and took off a year or two because you had the money and wanted too, now you are ready to rejoin the workforce and want to learn to drive a truck - oh NO! You've been out of work for a year or so we can't hire you to drive a dang old dag gumb truck down the road! But go to school and get your welders license, HVAC license, CNA license, RN License - you name it and you won't have any problem getting a job cause you took two years off! But not in trucking they treat you like you are Charles Manson if you have been out of work for even one month. Even if you have a perfect driving record, no criminal record - if you've been out of work well we can't hire you to drive a dang old bucket of bolts truck down the highway oh no!

 

18-month toot around country with 3 dogs in car is how I ended up at Gordon. Mid-States Express fell off my last three, all I had showing was 10 months hauling mail Bloomington, IN~Cincy. As one recruiter said, "Victor, you've got more time showing off trucking than on now..."

Oops!!

 

I see a lot of what you said changing in the not too distant future..My job history is horrible and I don't have any problems finding work when I feel like working that is.I do agree some of the way companies hire is crazy because they let a lot of excellent drivers slip thru.I see before too long the screening process won't be as intense,I see them letting more go thru that has an adequate mvr and csa.Otherwise if they continue to deny drivers that don't have a near perfect everything then companies deserve what they get far as low quarterly numbers.I do agree,just because you've been out of driving for awhile as long as you remember how to drive trk and pass their road and backing test,you should'nt have to be required to take a refresher course..Where im working,there are drivers that's been out of the driving scene for yrs and my company hired them.One driver hasn't drove since in the 90's.I think the small to medium carriers are more likely to bend the rule on their policies compared to the mega's.But I see that changing otherwise carriers and their customers will be the ones suffering.

 

Swift's (SWFT on Nasdaq) 8-K quarterly available here: http://secfilings.nasdaq.com/filing...ATION+CO&FormType=8-K&RcvdDate=7/24/2014&pdf=

Will take a better look from Prairie du Chien. SWFT's running an operating ratio of 91 plus per cent, meaning costs to operate eat over 91 per cent of revenue. Net is down significantly from 2013, same quarter. With $183 million in net revenue for the quarter, SWFT can probably afford $500,000/wk in new driver pay--$26 million or so. Plus some substantial restructuring of SWFT's debt concluded in June will help.

So the pay increase does not have to be a smoke-and-mirrors increase, with gotchas like some quarterly bonuses at some companies. The money's there to increase driver pay.

For now, on to Prairie du Chien...

 

They went from 11000 trucks to 10,000. According to posts in this section, their base pay went up 4-6cpm in the past couple of days and their short-haul pay scale now kicks in on loads under 500 miles (instead of 300). Ought to be worth in the neighborhood of $5,000/year per driver

 

Well at least the stock is down for the best reason (from our perspective) possible. It's not as if rates are down and we are over capacity industry wide. In that case it would be layoffs/pay cuts/liquidation. It's the opposite... Rates are good and individual trucks are quite profitable because the economy is getting better. But that's a double edged sword with Swift. When the economy improves, you lose all the people who got into trucking out of desperation after the housing crash. The only ones left are the people who enjoy trucking and are good at it. So the question Swift has to ask themselves is why would these people drive for them? Personally I stopped window shopping other companies when Swift raised my pay to 43cpm.