Is There A Truck Driver Shortage?

According to the American Trucking Association’s “US Truck Driver Shortage: Analysis and Forecasts” report, there is a nationwide shortage of 20,000 CDL long-haul truckers. If current demographics continue, the shortage will reach 111,000 by the year 2014.

Even worse, the CDL driver turnover rate can be as high as 121 percent, according to large carriers. The first quarter of 2005 showed a shortfall of 195,000 drivers across the industry. Today, about one third of the nation’s haulers are long-haul truckers.

Bill Graves, ATA president and CEO, said the truckers’ job market is the tightest it has been in two decades, limiting the tonnage that freight motor carriers can move. He added that it has become crucial to the national economy to recruit, hire, and retain new industry workers through better financial incentives.

“The Truckers Report” was taken aback by the surprise voiced by motor freight haulers. Consequently, the haulers have conducted all-out blitzes in a variety of media to attract new drivers, an effort which yields poor results. The companies pay an average sign-on bonus for each driver of about $3,000. However, low job satisfaction and disappointing wages result in high turnover numbers, which in turn spurs the trucking companies to engage in another hiring frenzy with large sign-on bonuses as bait. It is a maddeningly vicious circle for truckers.

The thought of hundreds of thousands of additional trucks on the highway is daunting. Perhaps there is no actual shortage of drivers, but rather a lack of common sense and sound business practice. To many observers, the trucking industry is the most callous and uncaring ever witnessed. The astronomical turnover rate comes as no surprise to them.

The remedies for the huge turnover rate are rather simple: do not conduct a desperate and cynical ad campaign, do not hire non-English speakers, do not pay a $500 finder’s fee to anyone who can find a candidate. In short, change the business model. Retention of current drivers, payment for the endless time spent in parking lots, payment of a rate that is proportionately higher than it was in the 1980s, and assuring them of one day off out of every seven will solve the turnover problem.

If trucking companies were to follow these strategies for retaining CDL jobs, their constant search for drivers would be over. The drivers would be storming the companies’ doors to apply for the CDL jobs. This makes much more sense than contending with a chronic 121 percent turnover rate.

Subjectively, the quality of drivers has dramatically in the past few years. Bad conditions on the road and bad company policy are a no-win combination that no one wants. The good drivers with intelligence, courtesy, and all the other sterling virtues are leaving in order to save some shreds of dignity and sanity.