Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. (NASDAQ:ODFL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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So, that’s becomes a 70 basis point or so headwind for us. I think that we are going to continue to see a little bit of a headwind from depreciation as well. We have talked about this as we worked our way through last year that our delivery cycle was a little bit different than prior year. And so, we are probably going to see a little bit more headwind from here. So, on a normalized basis that probably puts us at about 200 basis point increase. So, we are where we just finished the fourth quarter. But — so, that kind of puts us somewhat flattish if you will on a year-over-year basis if we were to hit that. And certainly, I think if we get better revenue performance, we have got the opportunity to be able to outperform that longer term normalized average.

But I think the revenue environment will certainly control a lot of it for us.

Jack Atkins: Okay, very helpful. Thanks again.

Adam Satterfield: Thanks, Jack.

Operator: Our next question comes from Bascome Majors with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Bascome Majors: Following up on the waiver fees, your headcount was down about 3% sequentially. I think that’s the biggest decline besides the COVID 2Q ’20 jobs that you had since you began reporting this on a quarterly basis. You talked a little bit earlier in one of the other questions about feeling you are in a fairly good place. Can you elaborate a little more? Does that mean your headcount flat to up from here, or flattish and then trend with volumes from here? And just to help put a finer point on that, any commentary on productivity or the cost of heads — I don’t know, labor cost for employer, any other guidance you can get to help us kind of frame the cost piece of that in the expectation? Thank you.

Greg Gantt: Thanks, Basc. And this is Greg. But I will take that and try to give you as much color only as possible. But obviously we made some adjustments where we felt like we needed to in headcount. And as Adam mentioned earlier, we talked about attrition. And we have kind of let attrition control some of these adjustments. But we have made some in other places where we needed to. Certainly, we haven’t replaced openings likely typically would in a normal cycle where we are growing and what not. But — and that will continue to be our efforts still thanks to our return of the other ways. So, we will see typically — we will see a little uptick late February. Going into March, things really start to pickup. So, is that going to be the trend this year?

We hope so, but just not absolutely certain. But I think we are in a good spot because as I mentioned in my comments earlier, we’ve got an awful lot of qualified drivers that we have got work on the platform and what not. They are not driving full time. So, I think we will certainly be ready when the increase does happen, you know, hope it’s sooner than later, but definitely we will continue to make adjustments as needed. We talked about this on some of our prior calls. We have been able to make these adjustments in downturns in the past. I think we pretty began we can make adjustments when we need to. We have done it again. We feel good about where we are. We just have to continue to stay on top of it and react as the business dictates. I hope that helps.

Bascome Majors: No, it’s fairly helpful. To maybe cap that off, any thoughts on items that could impact kind of the cost per head this year? I don’t know if there are some variables on incentive comp or other things that might make little bit lengthy versus what we would deem a normal trip based on history? Thank you.

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