The State of the Trucking Economy Thread

It sucks

Everything
Everywhere

 

My company is extremely busy lot of our Freight were taking from other carriers that can’t seem to make on time to pick up or deliveries.. We have a very high on time percentage that’s why we keep getting all the Freight that we’re getting

 

For what it's worth....

During the peak period of COVID -- I did intermodal freight out of the Atlanta area.

COVID produced a rather sharp...but relatively short-lived recession.

During that time -- I don't remember ever waiting for a load.

The following is a list of approx 90% of the companies I pulled for then; see if you notice a common thread in the following:

• Walmart
• Target
• Lowe's
• Home Depot
• P&G
• General Mills
• WestRock

-- L

 

It's tight, but no worse than other Decembers. Spring usually picks up, and I expect the same.

 

I’ve been practicing semi retirement the last couple of months. No infrastructure moving on my side of the country, SoCal. Only infrastructure moving is the low ballers that can’t speak English. So we are holding tight until they clean them out.

 

We are somewhat busy, things are picking up even though it’s December when things normally slow down for the new year and taxes and inventory adjustments.
Kind of unusual for December being busy.
Im talking about hazmat tanker by the way.

 

Its december. Im actully about on point for this this time of year. Actully doing slightly better so far then i did the last 4 years on average so far. But we still have a few weeks left for that to go either direction. But so far im within $1500 of what i normally do this time of year.

And tbh i think a lot of the reason your seeing so many of these companys fail or freeze hireing is that a lot of them exploded in size, debt and scope over covid and/or investors pushing constant unsustainable expansion. A lot of them also are either union along with all the cancer THAT brings, or had all their eggs in one basket with rife mismanagment such as 10 roads sometimes all the above.

As for volume go look at various government sites over the last 20 odd years. Things are fairly consistant with what you would expect to see, but capacity i.e how many drivers, companys and trucks are on the road has absolutely exploded over the last 5 or 6 years. And with how many blatently illegal operations are being proven....well is it any wonder things are falling apart? Too many trucks, and too many operateing in a way that you cant legally compete and now all the bloated old giants are failing.

 

Company im with is struggling to find quality hires for our increasing freight contracts

Drivers either fail our pre hire driving standard or pre hire drug test and we dont hire rookies unless they go through a very specific school.

We have more freight than we can handle, BUT a lot of other carriers around here are laying off, freezing new hires, or shutting down completely.

Last time we were updated about 85% of our freight is purely dedicated contracts.

Central US, reefer / tanker, local, otr, full truck and LTL.