ArcBest Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCB) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Judy McReynolds: And that that’s something that we’re focused on, and making sure that we have people in the right places, but we — we really have that opportunity as we go. And then our visibility into the network about the business volumes that we have at given locations has never been better. It’s one of the reasons why some of the transactional business, Danny’s talked about already, works well for us. And really provides an opportunity for us to better manage our costs, and we have a pilot of our city route optimization technology, and initial results of that improved productivity by a 1.5% and also, we had 67% reduction in cartage in those locations, and that’s better than 25% reduction in some other locations. So, not only do we just have the pure matching of the headcount to the business levels, but we also have this type of work that’s going on to optimize as well as the ability to attract, that transactional or quoted business to best serve our needs when we have those in the network.

Jordan Alliger: Great, thanks so much.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jack Atkins with Stephens Incorporated. Please proceed.

Jack Atkins: Okay, great. Good morning. And David, I’ll add my congratulations to the others. Thanks for all the help over here. So, I guess maybe kind of — for you on this, David. I mean, as you sort of think about the business here in the first quarter, you guys have really highlighted all the efforts that you’ve undertaken to make the business more resilient through cycle and make it more dynamic in terms of its operations. I mean, as you sort of think about, as we hit in the first quarter, you highlighted in the 8-K, I think a average, sequential deterioration fourth quarter to first quarter about 400 basis points, it’s greater than that during periods of economic uncertainty, should we think about you guys performing kind of better than you would historically, based on all the items you just flagged in terms of the business processes that you’ve implemented?

David Cobb: Yes, Jack. There’s we give that point of reference as a historical sort of number. And that would be our intention to try to beat that, we certainly would try to, we think it’s achievable to get our cost per shipment, kind of in a lower place. So, there’s opportunity there. And in those areas, that Judy mentioned from technologies, and then as I mentioned, around, our stable workforce. Certainly, the macro though is going to dictate a bit of things, and so and have an influence. And so, we’ll manage carefully through that. But just it’s not about managing quarter-to-quarter, it’s really about staying focused on these longer-term growth targets. And I’m excited about that for the business.

Jack Atkins: Okay. Okay. So, just sort of assure to watch how that unfolds this year. And then I guess, my follow-up question, as you sort of think about the second half of this year, you have the labor negotiations, I know you don’t want to bring the bargaining table to the fourth quarter conference call, but is there anything you can kind of maybe help us kind of think through in terms of timing? There was another large union employer that reported last week, that doesn’t feel like they’re expecting a significant step-up in their expenses related to their new contract, they feel like they’ve sort of towards the market there and that their businesses has been sort of keeping up with inflation. Is there anything you can maybe help us think through because I know that’s a point of concern for investors, just that there could be some labor inflation in the second half of the year? Thank you.

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