Most providers in the market are expecting the trends of tight capacity, spot market pricing, and high demand for service to continue for the foreseeable future.

“A perfect storm of factors — strong consumer demand, limited production levels and driver availability issues — has led to a historically strained market in the wake of the ongoing pandemic. Shippers have been anxiously waiting for the market to loosen up for months, and they should expect to continue waiting well into early 2022. On the capacity side of things, equipment shortages, limited production levels and driver availability issues continue to contribute to the overall strain. Most of these issues do not have quick fixes. Carriers have been working to overcome the driver shortage issue with limited success since well before the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe.”