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Weekly Driver Recruiting Report – February 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 specialized trucking sector is still struggling to recover.

New episodes of the Weekly Report premiere every Wednesday at 10 AM CT on our YouTube channel and Recruiting Resources page.

We provide the Weekly Report in numerous formats every week. Which one is right for you? Watch the latest reports on our Talent Intelligence Resources or YouTube pages, use our Numbers at a Glance section for quick visual references, download the Weekly Report PDF (available below), read the transcript, or listen to the audio version of February 16, 2022, Weekly Report below.

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Numbers at a Glance

Spot Rates
WOW: Flat
Spot Rates by Segment
WoW: Dry Van Up 1¢ per mile
WoW: Refrigerated Down 6¢ per mile
WoW: Flatbed Up 2¢ per mile
Load Posting Volume
WOW: Up 2%
Load Volume by Segment
WoW: Dry Van Up 1%
WoW: Refrigerated Down 1%
WoW: Flatbed Up 4%
Truck Postings
WOW: Down 2%
Truck Driver Searches
WOW: Down 5%
MoM: Up 6%
YoY: Down 15%
Clicks on Truck Driver Postings
WOW: Up 1%
MoM: Up 4%
YoY: Up 51%

February 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 February 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 – February 16, 2022

Hello everyone and welcome to the Weekly Report. If you like our show don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe to our channel for more great recruiting content.

Speaking of recruiting content, a new episode of the Recruiting Roundup with yours truly just debuted this week, so if you haven’t checked that out yet, give it a watch.

Now on to the report.

THIS WEEK IN JOB BOARD SEARCHES AND CLICKS

Bit of mixed bag with searches as we saw a drop of 5% WoW, an increase of 6% MoM, and a decline of 15% YoY. Little more straightforward with clicks as we saw gains across the board or 1% WoW, 4% MoM, and 51% YoY.

Last week the owner-operator postings saw the largest decrease in activity as searches on job boards fell by 32% and clicks dropped by 19%.

Search and click activity also declined on postings for both team and inexperienced/trainee driver positions. Company drivers, which make up the vast majority of overall total truck postings, saw an increase in clicks, but the number of searches was flat.

THIS WEEK IN FREIGHT

Total load postings increased by 2% WoW as dry van rose by 1% and flatbed increased by 4% WoW, while refrigerated fell by 1% WoW. Those increases in dry van and flatbed were almost all due to the volume in the Midwest and South-Central regions of the U.S.

Truck availability dipped by 2% WoW as the overall load-to-truck ratio rose slightly and remains stronger than what we saw before the holidays. Here too we saw increases for both dry van and flatbed as refrigerated saw declines.

Overall spot rates remained flat. While dry van and flatbed both posted gains or 1¢ per mile and 2¢ per mile, refrigerated … you guessed it was once again the odd man out and rates dropped by 6¢ per mile WoW.

It should be noted there was a sharp increase in the price of fuel, a full 10¢ which is mostly responsible for keeping the overall rate from falling.

STORY OF THE WEEK

Revised numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that believe it or not, there are 26,300 more individuals employed by truck transportation establishments now than there were two years ago. On top of that, December 2021 is now an all-time December record for trucking employment.

Overall, companies hauling general freight (consumer-oriented freight) have seen increases in employment. The gains over that two-year period are primarily attributed to general freight, local sector. But there have also been gains in the general freight, long distance TL and LTL sectors.

Specialized sectors, however, have yet to recover and reach their 2019 levels. This does make sense though, as manufacturing output is still below those pre-COVID levels, and industries like hydraulic fracking have not fully recovered as of yet.

This data highlights the substantial shift of trucking capacity towards the general freight sector since the start of the pandemic. The data also reflects the drivers’ increased interest in jobs that offer increased home time. The jury is still out on whether the infrastructure package and rebounding manufacturing may be able to spur more employment in specialized sectors throughout 2022.

That does it for this week’s report. If you’d like more information on anything we covered, as always you can find a link to the full downloadable PDF in the description if you’re on YouTube or in the body of the page on the Randall Reilly site. Come on back and see us next week when we take another look back to help you move forward. Until then, have a great week everybody.