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YRC Worldwide's (YRCW) CEO James Welch on Q4 2017 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
https://seekingalpha.com/article/41...-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single
Operator
You’re next question comes from David Ross with Stifel. Please go ahead.
David Ross
Good afternoon everyone. Could you – I guess, with the employee hiring difficulties, does that mean that your headcount was down year-over-year and you’re missing some people? Or did you just not have the right people in the right places? So I guess another way to ask that question is, what was – what happened to the headcount year-over-year in both Freight and Regional in the fourth quarter?
Darren Hawkins
Yes, David. This is Darren. That would be down in both Regional and YRC Freight. Not large numbers, but to your point about location specific. When we did our network enhancement, we chose locations intentionally around our success of hiring there. So that’s certainly having a contribution to the network. But overall, we’re still a few hundred drivers short. And even in a downtime of the year, that’s crucial. We certainly went to the purchase transportation lever to make up for those shortfalls to continue providing a reliable service to our customers. But the focus that we’ve done and certainly I mentioned it a lot about that in the script this time, just because of the investments we’re making our hiring efforts across the entire organization focused around drivers.
James Welch
And certainly, that created more overtime than what we’d like to have, Dave, along with bad purchase transportation, which is that city local cartage. So T.J., you want to make any comments about the Regionals a little bit more than what Darren was talking about?
T.J.O'Connor
Well certainly, certainly, in certain geographies, David, we had continued driver demand that exceeded available – for the industry frankly. So certain markets were very negatively impacted by available job seekers and our ability to hire to the needs of the business, particularly in Q4.
David Ross
Are you able to adjust wages up high enough. I know that you’ve gotten some concessions from the NMFA previously for market-based hiring. And then, how quickly would you be able to pass that on through better yields or higher pricing?
Darren Hawkins
David, the ability we’ve got is to speed up the progression to top out pay. So in most locations, that is sufficient. And once you identify the applicant. The other piece is we’re still capable of attracting drivers from other modes as well just due to the quality of life around LTL. And our turnover’s not near what you see in other segments. So those things are working for us. The wage progression has been a help. But even some of the markets that TJ was just referring to, those are difficult regardless of what the wages are. And I think it was you that commented recently that there hasn’t been any new drivers invented since 1985. And we’re certainly trying to change the trend on that.
James Welch
David. This is Jim. I think it’s important to note that we’ve got that wage program in 61 different markets right now. So we’re just starting to have an effect. And certainly we’ll build on that on 2018.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/41...-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single
Operator
You’re next question comes from David Ross with Stifel. Please go ahead.
David Ross
Good afternoon everyone. Could you – I guess, with the employee hiring difficulties, does that mean that your headcount was down year-over-year and you’re missing some people? Or did you just not have the right people in the right places? So I guess another way to ask that question is, what was – what happened to the headcount year-over-year in both Freight and Regional in the fourth quarter?
Darren Hawkins
Yes, David. This is Darren. That would be down in both Regional and YRC Freight. Not large numbers, but to your point about location specific. When we did our network enhancement, we chose locations intentionally around our success of hiring there. So that’s certainly having a contribution to the network. But overall, we’re still a few hundred drivers short. And even in a downtime of the year, that’s crucial. We certainly went to the purchase transportation lever to make up for those shortfalls to continue providing a reliable service to our customers. But the focus that we’ve done and certainly I mentioned it a lot about that in the script this time, just because of the investments we’re making our hiring efforts across the entire organization focused around drivers.
James Welch
And certainly, that created more overtime than what we’d like to have, Dave, along with bad purchase transportation, which is that city local cartage. So T.J., you want to make any comments about the Regionals a little bit more than what Darren was talking about?
T.J.O'Connor
Well certainly, certainly, in certain geographies, David, we had continued driver demand that exceeded available – for the industry frankly. So certain markets were very negatively impacted by available job seekers and our ability to hire to the needs of the business, particularly in Q4.
David Ross
Are you able to adjust wages up high enough. I know that you’ve gotten some concessions from the NMFA previously for market-based hiring. And then, how quickly would you be able to pass that on through better yields or higher pricing?
Darren Hawkins
David, the ability we’ve got is to speed up the progression to top out pay. So in most locations, that is sufficient. And once you identify the applicant. The other piece is we’re still capable of attracting drivers from other modes as well just due to the quality of life around LTL. And our turnover’s not near what you see in other segments. So those things are working for us. The wage progression has been a help. But even some of the markets that TJ was just referring to, those are difficult regardless of what the wages are. And I think it was you that commented recently that there hasn’t been any new drivers invented since 1985. And we’re certainly trying to change the trend on that.
James Welch
David. This is Jim. I think it’s important to note that we’ve got that wage program in 61 different markets right now. So we’re just starting to have an effect. And certainly we’ll build on that on 2018.