Is It A Good Time To Start Trucking Right Now, With The Whole Corona Thing Happening?

A little lightheartedness for this thread:

I completely agree with Brett.

I will also add that while I have had delays in starting my new career, I remain committed to pursue trucking as my new career, for the reasons that Brett mentioned.

While everything is shut down right now, I believe that other business sectors will get hit harder later on and certain ones will have a really hard time. In real estate lately, there has been a lot of new construction in higher end apartments. There was already some concern about over expansion in that market and absorption rates. Higher end apartments don't involve long term leases, generally a year. My daughter's apartment complex in Mission, Kansas, has already offered a rent concession. If she paid rent by April 3, they are going to give her a free month's rent. I suspect that business sector will get hit very hard during a recession and many of those new developments will fail, similar to the subprime meltdown. I also think that new single family homes will suffer as well, until the economy ramps back up.

However, I see trucking, and specifically flatbed as better able to weather the storm. A Prime driver told me that Prime flatbed drivers are hauling materials for these temporary medical facilities. And while construction may slow down, from my understanding, flatbed hauls a lot of raw material that is used in many different industries, such as steel and aluminum. And even if things get really bad, and a lot of manufacturing slows down, both parties have already talked about a major infrastructure bill, which is going to require transportation of materials used in construction.

All in, despite my frustrations with the delays, I actually feel more optimistic that this a good time to get into trucking.

despite my frustrations with the delays, I actually feel more optimistic that this a good time to get into trucking.

If you've lost your job or you're ready for a career change I can't think of a better industry to get started in right now than trucking. Trucks must keep moving no matter what. When the economy takes a big hit, it's the smaller players that will get pushed aside.

We never recommend being an owner-operator or lease operator, and really good small companies are few and far between. It's always best to bet on the major carriers, and never is that more true than in tough times. They'll keep their trucks moving and they'll weather the storm.

We have never shut down our entire economy like this. Never once in history has this happened. We've taken a wrecking ball to everything. I'm not sure where you can turn except work-from-home software or trucking, and even parts of trucking will take a massive hit.