Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/87831
BUSINESS In today's high-fuel-price environment, carriers like Illinois-based dry van fleet Nussbaum Transportation have turned to fuel-saving equipment like van side skirts and trailer tails to further boost leased drivers' take-home. Owner-operator Homer Kaiser, leased to Nussbaum, reported a 1-mpg gain after the company's fleetwide trailer upgrades. Pay trends O some carriers have taken strong steps to increase pay. Given driver pool weakness, look for recession ended, Since the more pay hikes. By Todd Dills 18 | Overdrive | November 2012 wner-operator pay has improved since the reces- sion, though a sluggish economy is producing mixed results for 2012, say experts who track compensation. Income for owner-operators showed a 7.5 percent year-over-year boost in the 12 months that ended in June 2012, said Todd Amen of owner-operator business services firm ATBS, speaking at the Truckload Carriers Association Independent Contractor Division meet- ing in September. On average, ATBS clients earned $50,896 in that period. Much of that income boost came in the first half of this year, when owner- operators both independent and leased saw the benefit of the brief fuel price decline between April and July, Amen said. Better yet – particularly for the long-term, he adds – for operators not in a percentage pay environment, close to a majority of per-mile-pay carriers have begun to pass along to drivers and contractors the rate increases they've been seeing since late 2010. However, that's likely to level off in this last half of 2012, says Amen. "The fuel increases will hurt these guys in the short term." Also on the downside, carrier/ship- per "leverage on negotiating prices [is] at an equilibrium right now," said the National Transportation Institute's Gordon Klemp in an Overdrive webinar in July. "We're not seeing rate increas- es." However, if the economy rebounds after the election, Klemp suggested car- riers can get higher rates, which should Courtesy of Nussbaum Transportation