Several truckers weighed in after a story in the Overdrive Extra blog last week noted that, despite overall spot market freight volumes surging back toward pre-coronavirus levels, the number of truck postings on major loadboards has fallen off since April — a week-to-week trend that continued through July. That fall off in trucks’ advertised availability via the load boards has been particularly pronounced among the smallest carriers — those with six trucks or fewer.
Find a chart from Truckstop.com in last week’s story. DAT’s Trendlines site, likewise, notes July truck-posting numbers that are 10% lower than July a year ago and around 6% off from the month of June.
Are folks still sitting out over sluggish rates?
“Rates … are hit [and] miss,” said Joey Hanna. “[That’s] why I’m not working as much. Some loads barely even cover fuel costs.”
“The rates have to go up. It’s not worth working for no profit,” said Vincent Minieri.
Rate averages have been steadily rebounding since the bottom fell out in March and April and into May, when truckers regularly reported seeing rates at just around $1 a mile. Today’s averages, despite climbing in recent months, still don’t seem to reflect the reality many owner-operators report facing day to day.
“[We] never really stopped, but we have been very selective with the freight that we choose to carry,” said Stanley King. “If the freight is not paying what we deem to be fair and [doesn’t create] a win-win for the driver and the broker, we pass. When I say we, I am speaking of the other four drivers that lease to the broker that I use. We don’t want to contribute to the industry having low rates.”
