We have a major truck driver shortage. Drivers are needed to keep our
economy going. Many truck
drivers are quitting. As
truck drivers stop driving or retire, they are not being replaced by a younger
crop.
Below are excerpts from
an article from Business Insiders that give an explanation of
why:
Higher driving costs and falling pay have created a
truck-driver shortage that's likely to worsen in the coming years. The American
Trucking Associations (ATA) estimates the U.S. is short 30,000 truck drivers —
a number expected to surge to 239,000 by 2022.
"Smaller
'owner/operator' firms are increasingly dropping by the wayside as the cost of
operations and maintenance are simply becoming too expensive to stay in
business," Paul Pittman, a planner at a North Carolina-based logisitcs
company, told Business Insider by email. So drivers are suddenly faced
with the choice of leaving the profession entirely or moving to a larger
company where wages are likely to be lower.
"As
controls continue to tighten, many of the existing drivers currently employed
are turning to other areas of employment simply to get off the road and escape
some of the regulations implemented to govern their operations," Pittman
said.
To hang on,
small operators are forced to cut corners. For Jeff, a driver who asked to
be identified by only his first name, the pay isn't the biggest issue — it's
the compromises some firms are making on driver compliance.
"When
you're non-compliant as a driver you run the risk of fatigue and the risk of
hurting other people," he said. "And as a driver it's my license on
the line." Jeff said he was asked by multiple trucking companies to
falsify his logs, but he refused to.
"I
consider myself a safety-oriented driver, and I have found that is a bad
thing," Jeff said. "Because since I got my CDL [commercial driver's
license] in 2008, I have worked for about 10 different trucking companies. That
doesn't look good because it looks like it is job hopping ... I'm sticking to
my guns."
Time Away
From Home
Another
problem is lack of time spent at home. Todd Feucht of Wisconsin says drivers
can expect to spend as little as 52 days at home a year. Feucht, who hauls
oversize loads, averages about three to five weeks. Last year he was home 54
days, including his vacation days. "Back in the day you were treated like
a knight, but now you're treated like a peon," Feucht says.
All of this
helps explain why the turnover
rate at large truckload carriers was 92% annualized in Q1, according to the
ATA. Turnover refers to the rate at which drivers leave the industry and are
replaced.
Getting
Squeezed
Meanwhile,
drivers with less experience or bargaining power get squeezed. Feucht has been
driving trucks for 20 years and thinks trucking companies need to be more
honest when recruiting.
There may
finally be some movement on this front. Last month, Swift, one of the largest
haulers in the U.S., announced it would refocus expenditures on better labor
conditions for employees, including higher wages.
"After
assessing the current and expected environment, we believe the best investment
we can make at this time, for all of our stakeholders, is in our drivers,"
the firm
said in its earnings release. "Our goal is to clear the path for our
drivers by helping them overcome challenges, eliminate wait times and take home
more money."
Moving forward,
Jeff
Roach
