[Hot Air] JOHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania — Two months ago, 30,000 truckers at Yellow lost their jobs when one of the nation’s oldest and largest trucking companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Last week, Convoy, the digital freight broker that was supposed to reinvent the wheel and disrupt the trucking industry in a positive way, also abruptly shuttered its doors.
These kinds of closings by both freight carriers lay bare the uncertain state of trucking, an industry that is an indicator of the mood of the consumer and also the beating heart of our economy.
"In my opinion, this industry is heading in the wrong direction, and when trucking and supply chain freight is heading in the wrong direction, so is the country. I am just not sure that people understand there is a problem," said Rick McQuaide, who runs a freight company in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, as well as in Florida.
"The damage started when people went on a spending spree during COVID-19. The government was giving out cash, and people started ordering things in a way they have never done before," McQuaide explained.
As a result, McQuaide said, new trucks were on the road to meet the consumers’ needs.
Beginning last year, that need started to recede when consumers’ spending spree started to ebb, and, as a result, several different things have happened in the industry, beginning with too many trucks in comparison to the amount of freight that is available. |