Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Despite the bad news and uncertainty about the economy coming out of Wall Street and Washington, D.C., the trucking industry is surviving — and poised to continue to fare better than other industries.
That was the message of Bob Costello, chief economist and vice president of the American Trucking Associations, who spoke to locals in trucking and related businesses this week at the Omaha Truck Center's Technical Advancement Center.
He pointed to growth in freight volume and revenue, particularly among larger trucking companies, as trends that are likely to continue. Overall, he said, the news coming out of the trucking industry tells a different story from the reports on the overall economy.
"Despite being a relatively weak economy, I think we're sitting in a great spot as an industry," he said.
Since January 2009, freight volumes among large carriers — those with a gross annual revenue of $30 million or higher — is up almost 12 percent, and average revenue per mile is up 8.3 percent, Costello said.
The news, however, isn't so rosy for smaller carriers, which were down 3 percent in volume and 0.6 percent in revenue per mile over the same period. He said that's because larger carriers tend to have more stability in terms of the number of trucks they're running every day and the number of shipments coming from customers. They depend less on "spot" orders, which are often the bread and butter of smaller fleets.
Throughout the recession, Costello said, companies did a good job of carefully scaling back their fleets to adjust to changing demand levels. Over the last few years, the number of trucks fell by about 13 percent, but it has started to increase again this year — another positive sign for the industry, he said.
In some ways, Costello said the slow recovery has been a good thing because of a growing trucker shortage. That problem, he said, can be attributed to several factors, including tighter government regulations that limit hours on the road and that weed out drivers with past safety violations. Meanwhile, he said, other blue-collar jobs, including those in construction and manufacturing, are currently paying better than driving positions.
"I'd venture to say that if the economy had taken off, come out of the recession going gangbusters, I don't think we would have been able to handle all of the freight we need to haul," he said. "I don't think we'd be able to keep up with it."
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402-444-1543, erin.golden@owh.com
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