Shippers across North America are in the process of conducting their annual or mini freight bid exercises. What is in store for shippers and carriers this year?
This is a unique year. The supply/demand curve shifted during the early stages of Covid. Consumers transitioned to working from home, cut back on travel and dining out, spent their disposable dollars on durable goods and some moved away from their city residences. To meet the demand for increased freight transportation services, to move the increase in durable goods purchases, carriers boosted their purchases of fleet equipment. As this process was unfolding, governments sent out cheques to support citizens who lost their jobs during this period and kept interest rates low to stimulate the economy.
As Covid dissipated, consumers cut back on durable goods purchases and shifted some of their discretionary dollars back to travel, dining out, and entertainment. The net result of these market forces was surging inflation. Prices for food, gasoline, travel, dining out, mortgages and many other goods and services escalated. While the economy is not technically in a recession, rising prices created limitations on spending, as discretionary dollars were reduced. The bottom line for the Transportation Industry: There is now too much fleet capacity chasing too few shipments.
The so-called “freight recession” is manifesting itself in the financial results of publicly traded carriers and in the number of carrier failures. The demise of Yellow Freight, a major LTL carrier that has been in business for many decades and Convoy, a much talked about, digital freight broker, are among the thousands of companies that have left the industry this year.
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