posted by admin on Jun 15
In fact, some freight operations are laying off employees in droves, if not going belly up altogether... Ontario,CA,USA -The Associated Press /
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, by Matt Wrye -13 June 2008: --
... A slowing economy and the skyrocketing cost of fuel is hurting small to mid-sized trucking companies in San Bernardino and Riverside counties with no relief in sight... According to Donald Broughton, transportation industry analyst at the investment firm Avondale Partners, during the first three months of this year, 935 trucking companies filed for bankruptcy. That's the highest failure rate seen since the economic slump of the early 2000s... Broughton estimates that more than 42,000 long-haul trucks - roughly 2percent of the nation's fleet of about 2million - were idled during the quarter... The large number of long-haul trucks that have been taken off the road is only one part of what's making it easier for long-haul trucking companies to find drivers. A softening economy with fewer jobs in construction and other industries that truckers might work in also is helping, Broughton said... Kelly Anderson, a consultant who advises trucking companies on how to attract drivers, said many have shifted their focus away from recruitment...
Tags:
freight,
transportation,
trucking companies,
trucks
posted by admin on May 16
RPO Helps ExxonMobil Keep the Trucks Rolling
Irvine,Ca,USA -Workforce Management, by Fay Hansen -15 may 2008: -- Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, ExxonMobil Corp. keeps 150 company-owned tanker trucks on the road and an almost equal number of contract tankers, each carrying 9,000 to 14,000 gallons of gasoline or diesel fuel to replenish filling stations across the United States... An industry calculation is that it takes a "butts-to-trucks" ratio of 3.3 to keep the tankers moving, but an acute shortage of qualified drivers poses a stiff recruiting challenge. But when ExxonMobil brought in Martin Pullman from its U.K. operations in July to manage its U.S. fleet, Pullman saw too many tankers parked in lots because of the driver shortage... In trucking, labor costs typically account for 70 percent of total expenses, and truck costs represent 30 percent, according to Pullman... Pullman outsourced the recruiting process for ExxonMobil drivers to solve the problem... With a decade-long shortage of drivers only becoming more acute, the demand for long-haul drivers will grow at an average annual rate of 2.2 percent over the next decade, but supply will increase only 1.6 percent, generating a total shortfall of more than 100,000 drivers a year by 2014, according to the American Trucking Association... The problem is exacerbated by extraordinarily high turnover rates in all segments of the trucking industry. Turnover for long-haul commercial drivers, who represent the for-hire segment, may run as high as 120 percent. Turnover for private carriers, which operate fleets solely for the purpose of shipping their own goods, averages 20 percent... Because of high demand, commercial drivers are constantly shopping jobs... Before Pullman turned to outsourcing, supervisors at each ExxonMobil depot handled all recruiting. And the results were poor... For every 10 candidates ExxonMobil supervisors interviewed, only one passed all the tests and qualified for an offer... With MTS, ExxonMobil now averages seven or eight hires for every 10 interviews conducted... Pullman adds that the MTS arrangement has allowed ExxonMobil to raise the overall workforce quality. Since MTS took over recruiting, the company’s safety record—measured by the number of accidents per 1 million miles driven—has improved by 25 percent... MTS estimates that the task of filling one to three open driver positions requires 100 respondents and 130 to 176 man-hours to process them. Costs for non-hire screenings and communications are typically the largest portion of recruiting expenses... Across its entire client base, for every 10 candidates MTS sends out, 90 percent to 95 percent are hired. This high hit rate, however, depends not only on presenting qualified candidates but also on gathering detailed information about the open positions...
Tags:
safety,
trucks
