Joshua Miller

The freight market is continuing to show some real signs of strength. Rates are climbing across the board, with flatbed rates falling just one tenth of a cent shy of the all time record. And while all segments are improving. Flatbed continues to lead the charge primarily due to the data center boom. But Jason Miller is going to cover that a little later in his full economic update.

Taking a closer look at freight driven rates are now at their strongest levels since 2022. Flatbed remains near an all time high, and low volume is surging as demand strengthens. Fleets are now feeling the pressure on the recruiting side and when it comes to driver recruiting, lead costs continue to climb as the number of unique driver job postings remain consistently low.

Many drivers, well, they just don’t seem interested in switching jobs right now. This is most likely tied to the security of consistent miles, and because of that comfort and lack of motivation on the part of drivers, fleets are having to invest more money and advertising to entice those drivers to jump fleets. Hiring rates are improving, though, as many companies have started by focusing on simply filling vacancies and being less selective when it comes down to who they’re actually hiring.

Fleets appear more willing to take that risk right now because the break even time for new hires, well, that remains relatively short. Fuel volatility, however, remains a looming threat as the uncertainty overseas drags on. More on that with Jason in just a few minutes. But before we get to Jason, let’s take a look at some of the latest driver polling from our friends over at Truckers News.

First up, they asked, when you call the fleet’s main number about a job, what is most likely to make you hang up before talking to anyone? The top response with 43% of the vote is reaching someone who can’t answer basic questions. Just behind that, with 38%, is being stuck in menus without ever even reaching a recruiter. Other concerns included being stuck on hold and repeated transfers.

You can get all the info and take a look at the full poll in this month’s download. And if you want more on improving phone interactions and recruiting communication, you can check out some of last month’s content where we really focused on the topic. The second poll we’re taking a look at today is asking about a hot button topic – AI.

Drivers were asked, have you ever used AI such as ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. to look at places to eat, park or sleep? And an overwhelming 64% responded with no and I wouldn’t. 28% said no, but I might in the future, and only 7% said yes. And if you’re wondering how drivers are using AI in other areas, including things like job searches, we’ll be diving into that later this month on the Recruiting Roundup and Digging Deeper.

We also have a full download covering the topic, packed with additional takeaways that it’s going to be coming out a little later this month, so keep an eye out for that as well. With more on the overall economy, uncertainty, and things to watch for. Here’s Jason Miller with his May economic update.

Jason Miller

Welcome everybody to our May update, which is going to be quite positive in terms of tone.

We’ve seen ongoing market strength for carriers. That seems set to continue for the next several months. We’re filming this at the start of May. We’re waiting to see if we get a sort of finalized peace arrangement. The met, so just keep that in context. Is interpreting this so kind of starting out truckload spot rates in the driven side advanced further in April.

They’re up a penny or two per mile here in May per Dat freight and analytics all ends sit in about 269 a mile. Now once we net out fuel, we see that the implied by and haul rates. You know they’re not what they were in 2021. So just to be clear right now, you’re not making the same type of profit you were in 2021 or very early 2022.

But we are sitting around 2018 levels on a line haul basis, and we’re up about 20% year over year, which is a nice solid number. We’re heading into road check week here next week. We’re expecting that’ll take some marginal capacity off the road, may tighten things up a little bit more near the flatbed side. We are actually at record all in flatbed spot rates right now, approaching 350 a mile per Dat.

And even on a line haul basis, we’re very close to the highs from mid 2021. So we’ve seen on that flatbed side, you know, from a historical standpoint, even greater strengthening the general sense is a lot of this is due to the data center construction boom. The resulting demand for construction equipment, very large batteries, electric power generation equipment, construction steel, large HVAC units.

So very flatbed centric freight because we’re not seeing really any strength in single family housing this year compared to last year. So it seems that it’s more that data center piece combined with capacity exit. Now, in terms of where things are at in the manufacturing space, the good news is we have seen isms seasonally adjusted. New Order index remains an expansion territory, albeit, you know, fairly low ish ratings from a historical standpoint of around 54.

So overall manufacturing is weakly expanding in terms of new orders as of April. And that’s on a quantity basis. We’re not looking at 2017 2018 type of strength and certainly not 2021 type of strength. But that’s the good news. The bad news is, is the PMI for prices paid reached a reading of around 84 for April. For perspective, that is worse than any reading in 2018.

That’s getting very near some of the readings that we were seeing in 2021. Now, this doesn’t mean that we’re expecting prices. Producers are praying to be increasing at the same rate they were in 21 and 22. They’re not doing that. But what we know is firms, manufacturers are reporting their input. Prices are almost universally right now increasing. What that’s going to mean is that I think the chance of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates this year is going to be very low, even if we do get a peace agreement, because it is going to take months to normalize the petrochemical supply chain around Hormuz.

And lastly, kind of finishing with FTR and Act research have both reported that April’s Class eight truck orders, while down from where they were in March, they’re still up over 100% from where they were April of 2025. So we’re still seeing very strong order activity. I think preliminary is 25,500. And what we see is this kind of reinforces and revitalizes that traditional pattern, that line haul spot rates are up year over year.

New equipment orders are up year over year. So that connection is very solid there again. And so what that would imply is as long as May’s numbers stay strong from a spot rate standpoint, we should expect May new orders to stay strong. We’re already seeing the OEM start to express that, hey, we’re starting to get a lot of our, you know, build slots are getting essentially filled up.

We because production has been so low, it is going to take us time to ramp our suppliers up. And so that will create questions whether some carriers will try to move forward with orders for fear of essentially missing out for lack of a better term. But overall, May is looking fairly positive from a macroeconomic standpoint. AI data center, fiscal ecosystem boom still doing phenomenal.

The biggest question we have is what happens with the Strait of Hormuz? We really need to see things calm down and traffic start to flow this month. Otherwise, if when we’re filming this next month, we still have not seen traffic moving, we will be in a much greater concern for a global recession in the second half of the year that could negatively affect the US economy.

So right now, good news and we’ll see where things are at. So have a wonderful rest of May.

Joshua Miller

And that’s going to do it for this episode. If you want to take a closer look at any of the charts or information Jason or I covered, well, you can get that in this month’s 30 day reset download, which is linked for you down below.

I’ll also leave links for the TruckersNews polling, and to the Recruiting Roundup and Digging Deeper episodes that we’re focusing on. Driver phone calls from last month. We’ll be back in June with another edition of the 30 Day Reset. Until then, thanks for watching.