April 19, 2021
By Pat Pape
This is the first of a two-part NACS Daily series on the truck driver shortage in the U.S.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. Since last August, merchandise deliveries to Square One Markets in Pennsylvania have been delayed at least 10 times, usually for about 24 hours. The reason: There was no driver available to make the delivery.
“Our distributor has never had that problem before,” said Lisa Dell’Alba, president and CEO of Square One Markets. “But Pennsylvania is having a terrible time finding workers construction, convenience store and truck drivers. It’s been difficult and caused a bit of disruption in our organization.”
January 2021 Trucking Improved
Written by Steven Hansen
Headline data for the CASS Freight Index show that truck volumes show volumes grew month-over-month - and the year-over-year growth advanced further in positive territory. The American Trucking Association (ATA) index improved and now is in expansion.
Analyst Opinion of Truck Transport
The CASS index is inclusive of rail, truck, and air shipments. The ATA truck index is inclusive of only trucking industry member movements (ATA s tonnage data is dominated by contract freight).
I put a heavier weight on the CASS index year-over-year which is more consistent with rail and ocean freight.
Econintersect tries to validate truck data across data sources. It appears this month that the truck employment rate of growth continues to improve. Please note using BLS employment data in real-time is risky, as their data is normally backward adjusted (sometimes significantly). Additionally, Econintersect believes that the BLS is not capturi