Weekly Driver Recruiting Report – November 16, 2022

The Weekly Report brings you updated data on recruiting metrics including click, search, and spot rates, plus a new story of the week. This week’s story – The driver shortage could reach 160,000 by 2030!

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Numbers at a Glance

November 16, 2022 Driver Recruiting Insights

Would you like to have your own copy of the trucking industry data? All of the information covered in this week’s report for November 16, 2022, is available for your convenience in PDF form below. Click the image to view and download your copy of the Weekly Trucking Insight.

Weekly Report Transcript – November 16, 2022

Hello everyone and welcome to the Weekly Report. For Randall Reilly, I’m Joshua Miller. If you like our content don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe so you never miss a new video. Before we get to today’s report just a few quick things. First, if you haven’t already don’t forget to check out our new eBook series, In the Driver’s Seat. The first installment, “How Driver Pay Affects Retention” is available for download right now.

Secondly, there will be no report next week. We’ll be taking the week down for the Thanksgiving holiday, but we will be back the following week at our normal time on Wednesday, November 30^th.

Finally, last week I mentioned we will be making some changes to the report moving forward, and I’ll fill you in a bit more on those after the holidays. But never fear we’ll finish out the year like normal and then we’ll change things up a bit as we move into 2023. So, stay tuned for that.

Now, let’s get to this week’s report.

THIS WEEK IN JOB BOARD SEARCHES AND CLICKS

A lot of red this week in both search and click activity. Searches declined 13% WoW, 5% MoM, and 41% YoY. For clicks, we saw a decrease of 9% WoW, 2% MoM, and 11% YoY. With that, it would seem that both interest and driver intent are down, at least for the moment. We’ll keep an eye on it and see how things shake out after the holidays as we head into the end of the year.

THIS WEEK IN FREIGHT

Load volume was down pretty much everywhere except for two regions, those being the West Coast and the Mountain Central – with West Coast once again leading the country for WoW load increases. The gains in those two regions, however, were not enough to offset everywhere else and the overall load volume fell by 6% WoW. Dry van dipped by 6%, refrigerated volume shot up by 13%, but those gains were essentially canceled out by a 15% WoW decrease for flatbed volume.

Truck availability increased by 2% as the ratio of loads to trucks fell to just up above the level posted four weeks ago.

Spot rates declined by 2¢ per mile WoW. The rates are now 14% below the same week last year and 9% below the five-year average. When excluding the fuel surcharge, rates were 27% below the same week of 2021. As far as the segments go, dry van rates decreased by 2¢, refrigerated increased by 3¢, but was once again canceled out by a 3¢ per mile decline for flatbed.

STORY OF THE WEEK

According to the ATA, the industry currently has a shortage of 80,000. Even worse, if we continue on this course, it’s expected the shortage could double by 2030. That would be a shortfall of 160,000 drivers. The average age of new drivers entering the industry is currently 35 years old, while the average age of all drivers sits at 47. That disparity means more young drivers are needed to offset the coming retirement of older drivers.

In response to this, the ATA has outlined what they think needs to happen to combat the shortage and attract the needed younger drivers to the industry. The steps they suggest include:

• Enacting legislation to lower the minimum eligible age for a Commercial Driver’s License from 21 to 18.
• Adding truck driving electives and apprenticeships to high schools to attract and directly engage with the younger demographic.
• Expand work visas to eligible drivers from other countries

In addition to the tactics championed by the ATA fleets could also try to:

• Grow female recruitment
  • Women currently make up 47% of the U.S. workforce but only 6% of truck drivers.
• Look to the military
  • Many discharged veterans are experienced truck drivers
• Promote technological changes
  • Highlight the industry’s cutting-edge technology
• Rebrand the trucking lifestyle
  • Younger generations want more than just a paycheck and aren’t simply looking for the freedom of the open road that attracted older drivers. Fleets should try framing truck driving by a service-oriented industry to highlight how the profession fills vital needs.

That does it for this week’s report. We hope it’s been useful and informative to you. You can download a PDF covering everything we went over today – that’s available down in the description on YouTube and it’s down the page on the Randall Reilly site. You can also download the first installment of our In the Driver’s Seat eBook series, links will also be available for that in both locations. And don’t forget, we will not have a report next week, but we will be back the following week with more details on what the Weekly Report will look like moving forward. Until then have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving next week. See you next time everybody.