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Oct 10, 2010

DRIVERS' SHORTAGE * USA - Market forces create critical need for drivers

The trucking industry’s perfect storm

(Photo by Lisa Powell - Greg Hall of Tipp City fills his truck with fuel at Jet Express)
Dayton,OH,USA -Dayton Daily News, by John Nolan -October 9, 2010:  ...   The trucking industry’s perfect storm: A combination of an aging work force, poor efforts to recruit new young drivers, an improving economy in which more drivers are needed, and tougher federal safety regulation that is prompting some veteran drivers to retire has created a shortage...  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports there were approximately 3,475,000 employed in all categories of truck drivers in 2006, 3,460,000 in 2007 and 3,388,000 in 2008... Among drivers of the 18-wheel, tractor-trailer rigs, the work force of approximately 1,673,950 drivers in May 2006 had fallen to 1,550,930 by May 2009...
(Photo by Lisa Powell - Don Cooper of Dayton has been a driver for Jet Express in Dayton since 1990)
Annual wages for an entry-level driver can be $35,000 to $50,000. One concern of potential drivers is the amount of time they may have to spend away from home. Trucking companies eager to recruit drivers may be more flexible now in offering route patterns that reduce the intervals away from home...


* Shortage of Truckers Will Raise Shipping Costs

 Englewood Cliffs,NJ,USA -CNBC, by Brian A. Shactman -8 Oct 2010: -- As the national unemployment rate remains at 9.6 percent with Friday's jobs report, there's one part of the U.S. economy that is desperate for workers—or rather, drivers...   According to several trade groups in the trucking industry, there could be a shortage of drivers next year, and the estimates range from 200,000 to as many as 500,000...   Baby Boomers are beginning to retire in large numbers. According to shipping giant UPS, it could lose 25,000 drivers to retirement over the next five years alone...   Another part of the labor shortage is the uptick in demand. As the economy has moderately recovered, so have freight volumes. Businesses need to expand, and that sparks another leg of driver demand...   Trucking companies have to actually cut capacity due to a dearth of drivers. Both UPS and FedEx recently raised rates, and according to Dahlman Rose & Co., trucking rates could jump double digits next year...   For many, driving a truck is a last resort. Average salaries are under $40,000, and the job doesn't carry many of the pension benefits it did a generation ago...   (AP Photo: Trucks on roadway)


* OPINION: Shortage of truck drivers is industry made

Dunnellon, FL,USA -Ask the Trucker, by Allen Smith -October 7, 2010:   ... This shortage is a self-made fabrication, brought on by the industry itself, largely in part to continue the turning over of more experienced, higher paid drivers for the newer, inexperienced drivers at a lower pay scale . . .  cheap labor  . . .   The truck driver shortage myth has been thrown out there for years, mainly due to the ATA and their so-called studies. Debunking the shortage fabrication is actually very simple to do, by looking at two factors : freight rates and driver pay...  

* Cheap freight kills Owner Operators
A true truck driver shortage would cause freight rates to go up, yet that has never been the case. The absence of any significant rise in freight rates would suggest the complete opposite of a truck driver shortage. Furthermore, if a true driver shortage existed, shippers would be facing the problem of finding trucks to transport their goods and stores would be having trouble keeping their shelves filled with products . . . neither of which has ever happened.

* Driver pay forces drivers to quit
In the past, the ATA has used the industry’s turn-over rate as one reason for the truck driver shortage. The 2005, ATA commissioned study, The U.S. Truck Driver Shortage: Analysis and Forecasts, reported that driver pay is one of the main factors in the driver turn-over. Before the recession, driver turn-over had reached a whopping 128%, higher than any other industry. In the midst of the recession, this rate had dropped to 56% and eventually further to around 43%, with some estimates as low as 39%...   As freight begins to pick up and trucking companies step up their hiring process, the turn-over rate among drivers is once again beginning to rise...   Again, there has been no significant increase in truck driver pay in decades, thus debunking any facts for a real driver shortage.

* Motor carriers focus on hiring, not retention
Motor carriers focus so much of their time and effort on hiring drivers and fail to focus on the real problem of retaining truck drivers. Many of these companies have no interest in the retention of drivers. The more experienced the driver, the higher the pay demand. Cheap freight calls for cheap labor, thus the need for constant recruiting of the recent CDL school graduate...  

Add to the equation the lifestyle of long haul truckers: away from home, living in a truck, poor diet, lack of sleep and rest, forced dispatch, the CFR’s, HOS rules, DOT, the general public’s attitude, the closing of rest areas, disrespect by carriers, shippers and receivers, along with low pay and cheap freight . . . no wonder truck drivers move on to other vocations...   The industry may be able to fool the media, but truck drivers know the real truth !!!

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