hi everyone and thank you for joining me for this Freight waves industry update my name is Kaye Nick and I am here with a pretty exciting guest today we've got Tim Crawford joining us the CEO over at 10 Street and with all eyes on the new presidential Administration and what the New Year could bring we are now diving into hiring Trends and what to expect from the driver Market in 2025 so Tim thank you for joining me to talk about this pretty important topic yeah absolutely my pleasure kayy um yeah it is super interesting times
super interesting times and um and and we'll see you know what happens it feels like we've been as an industry Stuck in Neutral for more quarters than anybody cares to think about and uh and we'll see what the new year brings yeah it feels like you know with the recessionary pressure that we've seen on The Freight Market the last two years we went from what was best of times to what has been kind of the worst of times it feels like it's been sluggish and it's just been really a tough time for drivers in this
space and when we're absolutely when we're looking at 2024 and carriers are starting to look ahead what should they expect from the driver Market in 2025 both on the Heil and then also what challenges could carriers expect next year yeah absolutely I mean one of the things we think is that we think drivers um vote with their feet every day right when they decide when to go look in the market when to think about making a move um and and the average driver is on the market um about three times a year every four months
even in like relatively weak times we see them on the market with some regularity and which from a driver's perspective is totally rational right they're trying to decide where's the best place for them to sort of take care of themselves and their family um and what we've seen in throughout all of 24 is a lot of caution from drivers right the drivers that have the most discretion right are staying longer and longer at carriers and they're being more and more careful uh and more and more uh diligent when they do decide to go in the
job market um and I think even as you know the the hopefully the the drum be of good news starts to get a little louder right as we come into the new year around whether it's tender rejections or Freight volumes what have you um I think um drivers are going to be relatively cautious um and so I think that means from a carrier perspective uh carriers have to be on their aame in terms of um how to tell their story most effectively to drivers um because I think there's going to be some convincing that needs
to happen when it comes to you guys at 10 Street how are you all expecting to adapt to Market changes next year yeah I mean I think there's a couple things one I think um uh we too are looking forward to the the the macro environment the freight conditions to get a little better right um and and I think part of that is um you we're just tired of you know the lackluster you know mood in the industry that we've had for the last several quarters and so I think we're looking forward to that both
for for drivers and for our our carriers um and I think we're looking forward in terms of continuing what we've uh what the the steps we've taken from a product development standpoint and and trying to to lean in and feel like hey there's going to be some more opportunities in 25 to kind of building on what the things we did in 24 so a lot of the last two years has been kind of marked by trepidation almost for drivers to either want to stay in the seats that they're currently in or be really hesitant to
jump into the market right and find a new place to be what are some of those key factors that will influence those decision-making processes going forward whether that's to decide to switch carriers finally or to stay put where they're at yeah I think the and that's the million-dollar question right what's going to make drivers uh you know motivated enough to make a move and I think it's going to come down to individual drivers one At A Time's judgment around the prospects for that carrier that they're talking to um and but that is coupled with and
I think this is is really interesting with how easy the carrier is to work with and it and it when we look at the data it's almost like the uh the responsiveness of the carrier the straightforwardness of the sort of how they're working with drivers is view is a pretty good proxy for what that carrier is going to be like after the hire so even you know you know throughout all of 23 when um you know by a lot of accounts it would think it would be kind of a a carriers market right uh they
would be sort of have their uh uh the upper hand in terms of drivers and they you know drivers if you had miles as a carrier you you'd be able to kind of uh have first look at a lot of drivers and what we see is why that might been true on the margins the the fundamentals around um just carrier response time are still really really important right if for carriers that respond to an individual driver within five minutes of an application being submitted um most months that UPS the odds that that driver is going
to get hired by about 40% just being responsive um that has nothing to do with hey how many miles that driver is going to get has nothing to do with home time policies or detention time policies any of those things but it's I think drivers look at that and go oh that's a pretty good proxy if you can't respond to me quickly as an individual driver yeah you're probably not going to be more responsive when I'm on your payroll right um and so those sort of blocking and tackling things um uh continue to be really
important and I think are going to be increasingly under the magnifying glass into 25 as carriers as drivers are looking at a lot of carriers deciding okay um uh where should I go labor needs and the the pool of new Talent entering the market and the pool of people who are choosing to stay in the market after maybe even a year of service are are pretty constrained and that's been a really big topic of conversation around the industry really for the last kind of four years but I think carriers are now really getting Savvy to
the point where they say hey we're we're having a smaller pool to have to fish from right we have less fish in the sea for us to put in these seats so when it comes to looking at the number of people who are either entering or leading the driver Market in 2025 do you guys have any expectations about if there could be a change in those Trends if we'll see more entrance or if we'll see more exits I you know I think um that's a a great question and we don't have a a perfect Crystal
Ball by any means um our sense is that the the level of exits um is going to moderate a bit right as as you know as I think as more Freights available uh and pay packages you know Trend up with you know with mileage right I think the attractiveness some somewhere else is going to go down relative to trucking so I think we're going to my sense hope is that we're going to see fewer exits um the the entrance I think is a tougher one um and I think a lot of it has to do
with um you know what happens with your know interest rates and tariffs right that can really move the needle quite a bit in sort of the uh the employment markets adjacent to trucking right construction manufacturing those sorts of things and whether that's more attractive or not um relative to trucking so I think time will tell um uh but it feels largely uh I think those things from an individual carriers perspective um uh are going to be on the margins I think the the the fundamentals um are going to be those Trends are going to make
themselves felt over the longer term over a three to five year period and are not going to be sort of the dominant story of of people filling their orientation class in 25 so we're really starting to see these green shoots in the market we're starting to see some rate recovery we're starting to see more freay entering the market and hopefully finally some turnaround of this very shipper held power kind of back into equilibrium if not we're not over to the carrier side yeah but we're getting closer to that equilibrium right what will help carriers be
successful next year as they aim to keep their trucks on the road while they're continuing to gain momentum back on their side of the coin yeah I think the as things continue down that path I think the um the ability for Drive carriers to both attract good drivers um and and that is in our view a lot around speed and around being easy to do business with right that's on the one hand and then as a um at the same time though uh making sure that once drivers are on boarded um that carriers are uh
deliberative and intentional around driver retention right uh making sure that all those promises that were made during the recruiting process um you are made good right that's going to become more important because what'll happen is as you know sort of that Rising Tide Is Lifting all boats the carriers that aren't making good on promises they made during that recruiting process are going to face a lot of competition from you know drivers are going to have options of where they go right and and so I think there's going to be an increased premium on uh on
retention whereas in today's market what we're seeing is drivers may not be happy with the carrier they're at today um but they're pretty convinced the grasses and greener on the other side of the fence right and so there have been a lot more cautious and we can absolutely see that in the data uh drivers are being more more cautious than they've been in really really long time right now and we look to see that uh relax as uh as those green shirt shoots develop last question for you Tim and it's everybody's favorite buzz word to
toss around AI artificial intelligence and from a freighttech standpoint it's of course here and we're seeing it more and more but from a driver standpoint I think it's still kind of insulated a little bit from the reaches of this increasing technology but when you're looking at AI in 2025 how much is it going to have an effect in your industry is it something to watch out for is it a little over or is it just not a concern yeah I think um uh you we introduced our first AI products first generative AI products in 24
uh and we have several more sort of in the labs that we're planning on releasing uh later this year early next year um and you know one of the things that that we believe is that um if you target AI at eliminating or reducing ing human connections it feels overhyped right where drivers go where drivers stay um nobody looks at like a future employer and said oh I really wish my relationship with that future employer was like the self-checkout stand of Target right nobody looks at that from a driver's perspective right they're all trying to
make that human connection and I think that's 100% natural 100% right um and so AI in in as an enabler of those human connections we think is really promising um you know our perspective you know we have data um on you know interactions from millions of drivers and tens of thousands of recruiters and our real focus is hey how do we take that that uh Corpus of data and how do we do something to help make those connections um richer make those connections uh easier to make not try to eliminate you know uh those human
connections right we don't think that's going to we end up with a win for the driver or win for win wins for the carrier I love that once you get that human connection it gives us a little bit more of an opportunity to create those wins all around and Tim thank you so much for joining us for this conversation about 10 Street and what you guys are looking forward to in 2025 for folks who want to reach out to you maybe wrap up some loose ends as we head into the holiday season and take that
like two weeks that Christmas and New Year gets everybody the time off where where can people go to do that oh fantastic I mean I think um and and absolutely my pleasure uh as always I really appreciate the time the uh happy to uh anybody's got any followup questions connect with me on LinkedIn happy to engage and uh provide any help we can all right Tim thank you so much again for joining us today and thank you all for sticking with us for this Freight waves industry Insight have a great day and we will see
you next time oh
