Companies that operate private fleets find it increasingly difficult (and in some areas of the country almost impossible) to hire quality Class A tractor-trailer drivers. The driver shortage is not a recent phenomenon; it first began in 2011 as the U.S. economy emerged from the recession of 2008.
Unfortunately, the problem is only getting worse as time passes. Only three years after the driver shortage began, the American Trucking Associations (ATA), Arlington, Virginia, estimates a shortage of more than 30,000 drivers in 2014. The ATA predicts the shortfall of drivers to top 200,000 over the next decade, according to “The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More,” an essay by Neil Irwin posted Aug. 9, 2014, to the New York Times website at www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/upshot/the-trucking-industry-needs-more-drivers-it-should-try-paying-more.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0.
What follows is an examination of the reasons for the driver shortage and a solution to rectify this problem.
Aging drivers
The tractor-trailer driver force in America is aging rapidly. Younger workers are not entering the demanding field of truck driving as often as they did in the past.
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Trucking rates UP, driver availability down Trucking rates in the United States are increasing, and the recycling industry has been challenged by the lack of quality truck drivers available, according to speakers in the session “Keeping a Lid on Transportation Costs” during the 2014 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference, which was held in Chicago Oct. 8-10, 2014. Tim Voulopos of Cardinal Logistics, Concord, North Carolina, presented both of these questions to attendees: “Have your truckload rates risen?” and “Is it harder to find and keep qualified drivers for your private fleet?” He said, “We’re losing drivers and you’re probably seeing it in your supply chain. There’s no end in sight.” An estimated 30,000 truck driver positions are currently unfilled, Voulopos said. He pointed to a few reasons trucking rates have increased, with four of the six bullet points on his PowerPoint slide presentation wittingly identifying “drivers” and the other two reasons as “equipment costs” and “mechanics/technicians”. “The stereotypical ‘old school’ driver does not and cannot exist in today’s industry,” Voulopos said. He outlined several changes to truck drivers’ responsibilities that have helped to shrink the availability of drivers. The increased use of technology designed to monitor a driver’s performance—from engine and fuel monitoring to keeping track of hard stops—has translated to more work and stress for drivers for less pay, he said. The gap between the U.S. average wage and the average wage for a truck driver has been increasing, Voulopos noted. “If you want to be a driver, you have to subject yourself to all of this stuff,” he explained. On top of these new priorities, drivers also are aging rapidly. Nearly 75 percent of all turnovers among truck drivers are the result of retirement and regulatory impact, Voulopos said. Allen Clifford of Mediterranean Shipping Co. (USA) Inc., New York, who kicked off the Oct. 9 session, said the average age of truck drivers today is 55.“ He added, “There are no truckers left.” Mario Bruendel, general manager of the Newport Beach, California-based freight forwarder FMS Logistics, also spoke on the transportation panel. He said the older average age of truck drivers is a challenge for the industry. Additionally, the average truck-turn time has decreased 85 percent, driving up costs of trucking, he said. Bruendel explained how companies that at one time were turning over four trucks in one day are now turning over just a single truck per day. He suggested building long-term relationships with local truckers and importers as well as paying workable rates to drivers, advice also shared by Voulopos during the session. “If you do run a fleet … know your competition for drivers in the area regarding pay, benefits and bonuses,” Voulopos suggested. He continued, “The driver shortage is real and it’s not going away anytime soon.” |
Truck driving can include days or weeks away from home along with the stress of driving as many as 11 hours per day. Because of the potential for traffic accidents, heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers have one of the highest rates of injury and illnesses of all occupations in the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, “Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2014-15 Edition,” available at www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/heavy-and-tractor-trailer-truck-drivers.htm#tab-3.
Declining compensation
According to the Journal of Commerce, the average yearly wage of a truck driver in 2013 was $40,960, which was 11.8 percent less than the U.S. average yearly wage of $46,440 (www.joc.com/trucking-logistics/labor/truck-drivers-numbers-2013-infographic_20140512.html). As well, when adjusted for inflation, drivers were paid less in 2013 than they were in 2003, according to Irwin’s New York Times essay.
In contrast, other high-demand occupational fields pay much higher wages and offer a higher quality of life than truck driving. For instance, since 2002, the exploration for natural gas deposits and oil drilling has created more than 1 million high-paying jobs, according to the article “Want a Job? Look to the Energy Field,” in USA Today (available at www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/09/30/energy-jobs-growing/1598801.) Oil and gas exploration jobs can be lucrative, with entry-level oil rig workers in the Dakotas averaging about $66,000 per year—more than 42 percent higher than the average truck driver’s compensation. With a few years of experience, oil rig workers can earn in excess of $112,000 per year, according to an article in The Fiscal Times titled “10 Highest-Paying Jobs in North Dakota’s Oil Boom,” available at www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/11/05/North-Dakota-Oil-Jobs-10-Highest-Paying-Positions.
Increasing regulations
New safety regulations imposed by the U.S. federal government mean drivers spend less time driving. Individual drivers drove 27 percent fewer miles in 2014 than in 2007 (from 11,000 miles per month in 2007 down to 8,000 miles per month in 2013, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), U.S. Department of Transportation.
A comparison of the former and current rules in regard to hours of service as of July 2013 is available at right.
Abiding by these complex regulations, oftentimes resulting in lower pay because of less driving time, has caused many truck drivers to leave the profession entirely.
Contracting a solution
Companies that operate private fleets have been forced to re-examine their trucking operations in light of the driver shortage. With few viable options available today, many private fleets are turning to for-hire carriers that offer a service called dedicated contract carriage, which is defined as “…a flexible service that offers the service advantages of a private fleet and the convenience of a for-hire carrier.”
Dedicated contract carriage provides drivers, operations management, equipment, fuel, maintenance, safety processes, regulatory compliance and risk management for a client’s exclusive use.
By using dedicated contract carriage to solve its driver shortage, a company also can gain other benefits, such as:
- the latest logistics technology for optimized routing and scheduling;
- solid recruiting, training and retaining of drivers;
- elimination of insurance and regulatory responsibility;
- redirection of capital investments from transportation assets to focus on growing and improving business; and
- improving product cycle times.
Industry analysts predict that for at least the next decade the truck driver shortage will continue to be a very real and troubling issue for companies across the U.S. that operate private fleets.
Dedicated contract carriage, as another option, will help to alleviate the driver hiring problem and will provide the client with other benefits that lead to more efficient logistics operations as well as greater profitability.
The author is senior vice president of Cardinal Logistics, Concord, North Carolina. He can be contacted at tim@cardlog.com.
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