A Good 2nd Quarter

A lot of companies made a profit during the 2nd quarter. The links are to the news of the profit and not the actual company. For example – USA Truck, even with a 2mill wreck payout, Con-Way, Yellow Roadway doubles earnings, Marten Transport, UPS, Old Dominion, ABF, JB Hunt, Swift quarterly earnings up 80%, increase of 80%! Corporate relocations up, goodnews for household movers.

Everyone is making money. There’s a “driver shortage”. Lame attempts by Schneider and USXpress at sign on bonuses, but the base salary and the rate for owner operators is still lame.

www.delawareonline.com : The News Journal : BUSINESS : Truck drivers are in demand
Trucking companies are experiencing more demand from manufacturers and retailers than they can handle because of a shortage of drivers.

Like I’ve said a thousand times, there’s a shortage of cheap drivers.
And the answer to this problem is -

Analysts said trucking companies may have to boost salaries and incentives if they want to attract more drivers.

This article mentions Schneider and how they are having a problem and they’re hiring and there’s a job fair. A lot of articles mention Schneider. Almost every ‘news’ report of a driver shortage mentions Schneider. It’s like a lot of these reports are actually press releases from Schneider. Maybe it’s just me.

This was in the same article about USA Truck’s earnings

Although the company is handling fuel costs with some efficiency, Jones said wage pressures might come to bear on the trucking industry and USA truck in the next year.“We plan to take a 60-day break from growing our tractor fleet this summer to give our recruiting efforts time to reduce our percentage of unmanned tractors,” Powell said in the statement.

As the economy and job market heat up, other trucking companies have had to up wages to retain and recruit drivers.

I’ll let you know when I see that.

“They (USA Truck) were already pretty much at the top end of the scale,” Jones said. “We could see a second round of driver pay increases in the next 12 months. It’s their only carrot to attract them.”

“At the top end of the scale!!?? Their scale sucks, their Average Length of Haul is only 900 miles, which means you’re loading and unloading (waiting and more waiting) every other day. 32 cents for 1 to 2 years experience and .84 loaded and .70 empty for owner operators. That’s the top of the scale? That’s from their web site. And that’s sad.