Stay Metrics’ Driver Turnover & Retention Update: Q4 2021

Retention rates for newly hired drivers are steady 

2021 is quickly coming to a close, and with the upcoming holiday season combined with new driver shortage concerns, carriers can expect a challenging time ahead. With the constantly evolving nature of the trucking industry, it’s important to stay on top of where your carrier stands in this end-of-year market.

Stay Metrics, now owned by Tenstreet, is here with its latest quarterly Stay Days Table and Turnover Report to track carrier retention rates for newly hired drivers and give carriers a glimpse into current trends that help you make the best decisions for your carrier needs.

The tables and insights below highlight some of the trends that Stay Metrics is seeing.

Fourth Quarter Updated Reports

The Stay Days Table serves as a “survivor” chart tracking how long recently hired drivers are staying with their carriers, while the Turnover Report provides additional detail into driver employment trends among carriers. What does the data reveal this quarter?

To see enlarged versions of each chart, please click on the image.

Monthly Annualized Driver Turnover

MONTHLY ANNUALIZED DRIVER TURNOVER REPORT UPDATE – Q4 OF 2021. SEE “NOTES ON DATA” SECTION FOR INFO.

Quarterly Annualized Driver Turnover

QUARTERLY ANNUALIZED DRIVER TURNOVER REPORT UPDATE – Q4 OF 2021. SEE “NOTES ON DATA” SECTION FOR INFO.

The Stay Days Table

STAY DAYS TABLE UPDATE – Q4 OF 2021. SEE “NOTES ON DATA” SECTION FOR INFO.

• Retention rates for newly hired drivers are steady – Since April 2021, the retention rates for the 7-day, 30-day, 45-day, and 60-day milestones shown in the Stay Days Table have been fairly consistent. The 7-day rate has been at or above 95%, 30-day above 85%, 45-day above 82%, and 60-day above 80%.
• Average Days Stayed In First Year jumps back up – In our last report, we discussed how this number had dropped to previous levels. However, one quarter later, we see that this metric has shot back up, with newly hired drivers staying an average of 270, 229, and 244 days in their first year for the last three reported months. This is far higher than the numbers seen for drivers hired in the last three months of 2019. Looking forward though, this trend may dip back down, as the 270-day retention rate numbers for October and November are lower.
• Turnover still not to previous levels – From the months of May to September 2021, the highest monthly annualized turnover seen (55.1%) was lower than any turnover number seen from the five months prior to when the pandemic took hold, October ’19 to February ’20 (which ranged from 57% to 82.3%). The last time the monthly percentage went above 57% was June of 2020. When looking at annualized turnover by quarter, however, the data does show more of an upward trend. Turnover hit its lowest in Q4-2020, but has crept back up to 51.5% annualized in Q3-2021, though this is still far below the numbers in the high 60s seen in Q4-2019 and Q1-2020.

Could these findings be a sign that low turnover is going to be a trend that lasts past the pandemic? With the holiday season upon us, vaccinations opening up to children, new vaccine mandates being announced, and ongoing supply chain issues, there are a number of factors that could influence this trend. Stay tuned as we continue to report on our findings.

What Can You Do?

When creating a plan to combat your driver shortage struggles and keep your retention rates healthy, two strategies stand out:

• Strengthen your promotional efforts to find new drivers – With a shallow pool, it is necessary for carriers to cast as wide a net as possible when looking for new drivers, while also being strategic in their efforts. Tenstreet’s Job Store makes the process of posting jobs across multiple job boards easy by providing one point of entry to over 20 of the top sites for truck driver postings. Carriers can also leverage Tenstreet’s Concierge service, which is a free service that helps with writing job postings, staging landing pages, and managing your advertising spend.
• Focus on your existing drivers to reduce turnover – If carriers can retain more of their existing drivers, the strain on recruiting efforts is minimized. Tenstreet’s Insights solution can illuminate some of the issues your current drivers may be facing, so you can address their needs and increase their commitment to your carrier.

By determining a strategy now, carriers will be ready for a strong start to Q1-2022. Let us help your business adapt to any industry trends so you are set up for success. Give us a call at 877-219-9283 or email us at [email protected] and let us help you prepare for 2022.

Notes On Data: For this Q4, 2021 dataset, Stay Metrics (SM) chose to include data from 24 clients, based on their lengthy duration as clients and the quality of their data. For the analyses, data were aggregated to the client level, then averaged across clients. As this is based on SM clients, results could differ from the industry.

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