David Clark, who was the CEO of Flexport, a logistics company, resigned on Wednesday September 6, 2023. After leaving Amazon in June, Clark had a tough time transitioning and faced criticism over his leadership style. Flexport founder Ryan Peterson, the previous co-CEO, will be replacing David as he is reportedly considering a run for governor of Texas in 2026. Read more…
Category Archives: Trucking
ALCOHOL HELPING TO FUEL THE LOGISTICS INDUSTRY
During the heart of the truck driver shortage last year, “Walmart decided its own ranks of 1.6 million employees might want to learn how to drive a big rig for Walmart,” so the company “dangled first-year truck driver salaries of up to $110,000 and a 12-week training program for its Walmart and Sam’s Club store and warehouse workers” Former retail employees recently constituted the first graduating class from a training center in Walmart’s Sanger distribution center in Denton County, Texas. Read more…
WALMART TRUCKING PROGRAM PRODUCES FIRST GRADUATING CLASS
During the heart of the truck driver shortage last year, “Walmart decided its own ranks of 1.6 million employees might want to learn how to drive a big rig for Walmart,” so the company “dangled first-year truck driver salaries of up to $110,000 and a 12-week training program for its Walmart and Sam’s Club store and warehouse workers” Former retail employees recently constituted the first graduating class from a training center in Walmart’s Sanger distribution center in Denton County, Texas. Read more…
SHUTDOWN OF YELLOW TO AFFECT TRUCKERS
About 30,000 workers are set to lose their jobs as the shipping company Yellow has apparently shut down operations. Being one of the country’s biggest carriers specializing in smaller freights that don’t fill up an entire truck, the closure will “likely affect how certain goods will continue to be delivered.” Read more…
WAREHOUSE RENTS TO GO AGAINST LOGISTICS TRANSPORTATION DROP
Even as supply-chain costs plummet from pandemic highs, Hamid Moghadam, the CEO of the world’s largest warehouse landlord, claims that warehouse rent prices will continue to rise. Warehouse lease prices “have proven far more resilient than air, ship, truck and train transportation rates which have dropped sharply due to the consumer spending shift from goods to services, inflation and higher borrowing costs.” But now, with markets returning to more normal conditions, warehouse rent hikes are likely to increase. Read more…
OPERATING AUTHORITY KEY IN BECOMING AN INDEPENDENT DRIVER
If you’re thinking of becoming an independent truck driver, it is key to remember that “the responsibility for complying with Operating Authority requirements falls squarely on the driver’s shoulders.” You must become completely familiar with “filing fees, the type(s) of authority your business will require and minimum insurance requirements.” Read more…
YELLOW TRUCK HEADED FOR BANKRUPTCY
Craig Fuller, founder/CEO of FreightWaves, American Shipper, and CEO of FLYING Magazine exclaims that Yellow Truck “company failed to make payments to its pension plan. The Teamsters have threatened to strike on Saturday if not resolved. In its weakened state, it’s doubtful that Yellow can recover from this.” With a massive surplus of truckers, a Yellow Truck bankruptcy might remove some of that supply. Read more…
AFTER FLOODING THE MARKET DURING COVID, DRIVERS NOW STRUGGLING TO PAY BILLS
With so many consumers snatching up goods for their pandemic lifestyles, many people took advantage of the snarled supply chains by joining the truck driving industry. One such person, Arnesha Barron, “saw a moment to make her dream of starting her own trucking company come true.” But what was first an optimistic bet on the COVID trucking boom, the wager soon became a more troubling realization. Read more…
TRUCKER JOB EMPLOYMENT MOVES UP AND DOWN IN THE SAME MONTH
In the most recent monthly Bureau Labor Statistics report, the number of truck transportation jobs vacillated in what could only be described as “an up-and-down affair.” In June, total jobs in the truck transportation sector “declined by 200 jobs from May, according to the BLS, coming in at 1,609,700 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis.” But this number was an adjusted figure for May, “which was an increase of 700 jobs from the initial May employment report.” The April jobs went on to be revised upward by 100 jobs as well. Read more…
SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST TRUCK DRIVERS
The Supreme Court ruled against unionized drivers “in a dispute about the pressure that organized labor can exert during a strike,” specifically “against unionized drivers who walked off the job with their trucks full of wet concrete.” Both liberal and conservative justices united in the decision, with lone dissenter, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, claiming “the ruling would hinder the development of labor law and ‘erode the right to strike.’” Read more…