During the pandemic, disruptions to logistical chains and a spike in purchases for home delivery demand for independent truckers soared. With shoppers returning to stores and logistical chains being ironed out, independent truckers are struggling. Shannon Pettypiece reports for NBC:
In the midst of the Covid pandemic, with consumers buying up goods for their lockdown lifestyles and supply chains snarled, Arnesha Barron saw a moment to make her dream of starting her own trucking company come true.
The 39-year-old single mother of three teenagers had worked for six years driving a semitruck across the country as an employee of a trucking company. But in 2021, as shipping rates surged, she decided to strike out on her own. She took out a loan for a new $175,000 truck and was soon taking home as much as $20,000 a month in profit.
“It was amazing. I was a teen parent. I had my first child at 15 and all the odds were against me,” Barron said. “I had all three of my children graduate from high school while I was in a truck and I still made it happen.”
But like thousands of other truck drivers across the country, Barron’s fortunes didn’t last long. Over the past year, shipping rates have tumbled, leaving her and other drivers who bet big on the trucking boom struggling to make a living.
The number of trucking companies, many consisting of just a single truck and driver, increased by 50% between the start of the pandemic and the end of last year, with workers lured to the industry by record pay from companies desperate to move their goods and social media influencers promoting trucking as a way to get rich quick, said Todd Spencer, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. But as consumer spending has eased over the past year and the volume of goods needing to be shipped has returned to pre-pandemic levels, there is less demand for all those drivers — creating competition that has driven down shipping rates.
“Basically, the good times have come and gone,” said Spencer. “There’s a shakeout in the works right now, and it’s more than likely going to continue throughout this year.”
As shipping rates have fallen, a growing number of drivers have found themselves unable to keep operating, with 15,000 trucking companies shutting down their operations since October 2022, the majority being owner-operators with just one truck, said Dean Croke, principal analyst for DAT, a trucking logistics and analytics firm. He estimates another 2,000 carriers may have to leave the market before the supply of drivers meets the demand.
Barron said she went from making $20,000 a month in profits in March 2022 to just over $3,300 a few months later in July after fuel prices surged and demand slowed. That wasn’t enough money to keep up with her family’s expenses back home, which included $2,600 in rent, along with a $1,400-a-month loan payment for her truck. In August, she surrendered her truck to the lender, losing her $4,000 down payment and having to pay a $7,000 penalty for returning the vehicle.
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