Freight Recession Showing Promising Signs of Improving
Over the last two years, the freight market has found itself in one of the worst recessions in its history.
Studies have concluded that the industry appeared to be at a historic low in the last few years. Fortunately, the recession might be slowly breaking. As of April 17, 2024, the rate at which transportation requests are rejected was 3.95%, compared to last year’s 2.99%.
Tender rejection is a very telling way to observe how the industry is going. Typically, higher rejection rates point towards more load options that a carrier has, while lower rates reflect the opposite.
The worst of the recession in that matter appears to be lightening. According to experts, “We believe that tender rejections bottomed out in late March and have steadily increased throughout April, which is historically a soft month in freight. This indicates that the 2024 low is in the rearview mirror.” While the freighting industry has been struggling through commercial hardship the last few years, this could be a sign that the worst might be behind up with rejection rates on the rise, allowing the freighters more opportunities.
Transportation Volume on the Rise
Another piece of good news is that the number of accepted transportation requests is up by 9% compared to last year. However, it’s still 6% lower than the peak during the Covid-19 pandemic in April 2021. Even though it’s not as good as before, there has been a steady increase since January 2023. While there’s still a gap between current and peak transportation volumes, it’s getting smaller, which is a welcome sight.
While many in the freighting industry are frustrated and tired from the struggles of the post-Covid world, these findings do shed a glimmer of hope that, although the current recession has been long and grueling, things are slowly realigning themselves to where they used to be, and relief might be right around the corner in the coming year.
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