Positive Driver Hiring Outlook on the Horizon

Tenstreet’s Baily James reports on positive signs in its data related to the truck driver market

You may remember from our last dispatch on the driver market that conditions in the industry were looking challenging for carriers in the year since COVID-19 hit the U.S. While many carriers are still working to get their businesses back to where they once were, we’re pleased to report that we’ve seen several positive industry-wide trends in our data that indicate things are turning around for transportation – which should mean smoother sailing for carriers in the months to come.

Let’s review the data to understand what’s changing for drivers and carriers.

Weekly Driver Activity – 2021

Earlier this year, we saw dips in driver activity after the usual active flurry of new year applications and job changes. These February and March downturns were likely the result of a combination of harsh winter storms in February and the national stimulus checks in March.

As the chart below (which describes weekly driver activity over the course of 2021 so far) details, driver activity began a promising upturn after that. Since the start of April, we’ve seen a slow but steady climb back to January levels of drivers filling out lead forms and full IntelliApps, which is commensurate with most year-over-year trends which show late spring and early summer to be heavy application volume seasons.

Application Activity Index

The Application Activity Index is a measure of Tenstreet clients who have had a consistent IntelliApp volume for the past 25 months. We assigned January 2019 a value of 100 for comparison, which gives us an easy way to see rate of application activity change over the last two years while removing the impact of growth in the number of carriers using the platform.

As you can see below, carriers as a whole took a huge hit starting in February of 2020 (just as COVID-19 was beginning to emerge in America) and the market hasn’t rebounded to pre-COVID levels since. However, there’s hope to be found in this chart. Overall, we’re starting to see the same general seasonal trend lines the trucking industry is used to, with applications taking a hopeful turn upward in May, which will ideally mirror 2019’s trend of an increase in applications over the summer and into the fall.

Cost Per Full Application

For all of 2021, carriers were paying more and more each month for full applications (and on average more than they had to pay in 2020), but May marked the first month where the cost of a full app began to drop. As more drivers re-enter the market, this cost will hopefully continue to fall, cutting your recruiting costs over the long run as there are more candidates to choose from that meet specific hiring requirements.

How To Take Advantage of the Upswing

Improved market conditions like a lower cost for full applications and more driver applications coming in are obvious positives for carriers that result in saved advertising budgets and faster hiring timelines. But savvy carriers who want to make the most of this industry upturn should turn their attention toward other ways of making the most of their money and giving drivers a great experience. Below are some suggestions for how to maximize the potential of your saved money.

Save even more money with marketing tools

Marketing tools can help you improve your carrier’s personal performance even outside how industry behavior is trending. Here’s how you can save even more using tools to market to drivers:

• Track where your hires are coming from and understand how to allocate your advertising budget with Origins
• Engage drivers immediately and automatically after they submit an application and make sure promising candidates don’t slip through the cracks with Job Board Scrubber
• Keep in touch with leads and applicants so you can snag drivers as soon as they hit the market with Drip Marketing

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