Averitt pay increase could be a sign of some acceleration in driver wages

In its prepared statement, Averitt said its pay for regional drivers with a hazmat endorsement was being increased to 64 cents per mile. The previous rate was 60 cents per mile. 

Averitt, in its statement, called it the largest increase for regional drivers in the 54-year history of the company.

The current level of pay for regional drivers without hazmat endorsement is now 54.5 cents/mile. But that information was not in the Averitt statement. 

Asked about the difference in what was released, an Averitt spokeswoman said in an email to FreightWaves that the increases in pay for what it called its LTL associates–defined as “pickup and delivery drivers, shuttle drivers, dock associates, preventive maintenance associates and others”–was “significant but not as historic as the increases for our regional drivers.” The previous increase wasn’t all that long ago, the spokeswoman said: 2024

The increase comes as independent surveys of driver pay are mixed, though none of them show that driver pay completely stalled during the freight recession. Wages just went up by a slower amount.

‘Small upward trajectory’

Leah Shaver, the president of the National Transportation Institute (NTI), is considered one of the leading experts of driver pay trends. While she would not comment specifically on the Averett increase, Shaver said in an email to FreightWaves that beginning in late 2024, “the rate of growth began a small upward trajectory, and that trend has continued.” But she added that “wage gains remain relatively muted.”

That followed a period that began in late 2022, she said, when “the rate of wage growth began to slow significantly as fleets became much more cautious and intentional with their approach to compensation adjustments starting in 2023.”

Increases in driver pay are coming against spot linehaul rates that are lower than they were at the start of the year, according to the NTIL index in SONAR.

The recent report on driver wages published by the American Transportation Research Institute, the research arm of the American Trucking Associations gave its own recap on the trends of the past few years. 

In its report, ATRI said wage gains for drivers last year averaged 2.4%. In 2021, when the announcements of higher pay were flying into mailboxes, that rate was 10.8%, ATRI said. A year later, it was 15.5%. 

During the first two months of this year, according to the ATRI report, the rate was 0.9%.

BLS showing steady gains

But another set of data, that of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recently has showed some stronger gains not specifically for drivers but in the category of non supervisory and production employees in the BLS’s truck transportation sector. Drivers would be in that category.

Between May and October 2024, the hourly wage for that sector barely budged: $29.95 in May, down to $29.88 in October. 

But wages have risen every month since except one. The figure for May, the most recent available, was $31.11/hour. That number is the highest ever in that category. 

The June figure will be released Friday along with the monthly employment report.

Increases in driver pay are coming against spot linehaul rates that are lower than they were at the start of the year, according to the NTIL index in SONAR. 

That increase in the BLS data would align with what Shaver said NTI is seeing. “More fleets are reporting pay increases in our surveys this year than last year, and those increases are a little more ambitious,” she said. “The data does not point to any type of inflationary cycle, but we are seeing upward movement in the rate of growth and have seen that since last summer.”

The announcement of the pay increase gave Averitt an opportunity to tout other parts of its driver compensation, including a profit sharing plan that routes 20% of the company’s profits into employee 401K plans. 

The company also offers health insurance, company-provided life insurance and holiday pay after 30 days and paid time off after 90 days.

The spokeswoman also said compensation increases at Averitt generally are announced publicly. “This year our focus was on bringing awareness to the historic nature of the increase for regional drivers,” she said.

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