The quarterly report by Transport Capital Partners (TCP) has been published containing information that should be of interest to truckers, carriers, and anyone else involved in the transportation industry. Among the most interesting bits of information that TCP found was that only 66% of carriers surveyed were expecting to raise driver pay at any time in the next year.
Like many consulting firms, TCP does copious amounts of research to get a feel for a market in order to give their clients a competitive edge. Reports like this aren’t meant to be read by the people that it discusses in terms of percentages, averages, and risk potential which means there’s no shiny gloss put over the hard facts.
So here’s the truth: According to the survey, most companies (especially large carriers) are expecting substantial gains in freight volume in the coming year so they’re looking to expand their carrying capacity by adding more trucks and therefore more drivers. As we all know, carriers have no problem hiring new drivers, it’s keeping those drivers that they struggle with. With an annual driver turn-over rate of over 100%, consulting firms like TCP are looking for ways to increase driver retention for their clients. The most straightforward plan to increase retention is to raise driver pay.
Unfortunately for drivers, as of August of this year only 66% of carriers have plans to increase driver pay over the course of the next year. Of those carriers, only 41% are considering giving their drivers more than a 5% raise.
Despite their need to fill more seats, carriers are still losing drivers faster than they can recruit them. But why is the idea of raising driver pay to increase retention so widely ignored? According to a partner at TCP it has to do with shippers.
“Many observers believe higher driver pay is needed to bring more drivers into the industry,” said the partner. “But, until shippers are willing to pay more, carriers will be unable to meaningfully increase compensation levels.”
This essentially amounts to a claim that carriers cannot afford to increase driver pay. Contrary to this assertion, smaller carriers are on average more likely to increase driver pay or provide better benefits, and have significantly less turnover than large carriers. In fact, 33% of all small carriers surveyed have fully seated fleets despite working with the same shippers that large carriers do.
Next Story: Pilot Flying J Owner May Be Headed to Trial
Source: truckinginfo, thetrucker
I agree with the pay raise it would bring Moore people to the industry. The client should think about giving the company’s Moore money for what they haul .It hard to make it on what pay you do get
You should publish there names so drivers can avoid these company’s . company’s will do what drivers say if they just pull together and stop applying to them for jobs just say no to them and tell them what you want .
I’m with you David I have A guess to the short list of companies But lets see if it is published to who did give a pay raise
No surprise here. Smaller carriers have fewer rules and tend to leave their drivers alone. Larger carriers usually have young and stupid McManagers who enforce ridiculous harassing rules that drivers hate. Couple that with crappy pay and drivers run for the doors only a few months into the job. We need a list of the bad carriers so we can boycott them.
Lol at mcmanagers…im so gonna use that
lol @ mcmanagers!!
A partial list…would simply be any trucking company that has over 100 trucks….who are they? We all know who they are….The nicer and more ‘prettier’ the truck…the less pay a trucker makes typically. If all truckers just stopped delivering for (1) week….pay would increase…it’s “economies of scale/ 101″….which simply means….”when you need something more…you pay more”. Since truckers “drive the economy”…and companies would have little choice. But,…thankfully to trucking companies…most truckers are not educated enough to realize the power they have…if they were, they’d all be making what “car haulers” make; 75-100K a year.
Dang straight. We have the power and not twisting their arm for what we need. ;yet, they got us jumping through loops, bending over the fuel tanks, and regulated or governed to death at 55-62mph.
you are 100% right companies would pay more but truthfully how many of us could afford to take a week off. one of the things I see is that the people in the office make a significant mount more for their time than the drivers do. I think that is more of the problem. they meaning the company respects their work more than ours. I think we are one of the few professions that a person starting out can make close to the same pay as a person that has been doing this for 20 years. I don’t know about you but to me it seems wrong in every since of the word
If we stopped running for a week, they’d fire us, hire bunch of “McDrivers”, get them shiny new CDLs, have a bunch of accidents, file a bunch of insurance claims on the damaged/destroyed trucks, not replace them, and run less trucks while they wait for more “McDrivers” to be cranked out. The lack of available freight-movers would drive some freight to other conveyances (trains, for example), and raise freight rates for the companies, as shippers would have to compete the freight-movers that are available, and the freight companies would become more profitable – but there’d still be no reason to pass that profit on to the drivers.
We only have power if we are both in-demand, and difficult to replace. We’re neither. A week-long shutdown would be even less impactful than the 2 1/2 week shutdown of the Federal government has been.
Also… “Economy of scale” refers to the economic benefit of the efficiency achieved by doing things on a large scale, rather than a small one. Loading coal onto a train with 150 cars on it, rather than 150 trucks that each pull one trailer, takes advantage of the “economy of scale”, by consuming a lot less energy to deliver the freight, and by creating a much smaller payroll overhead cost to move it. In your context, the phrase “economy of scale” is meaningless. I think what you meant to say, was that it’s “Economics 101”, on the premise that driver wages are driven by the very basic principle of supply and demand. In your example, however, it is the price of shipping that is driven up by a short-term reduction in the supply of freight-movers – unfortunately, there is plenty of driver supply, so even if you can temporarily degrade rolling stock availability, it won’t take long to replace the uncooperative drivers, and get the trucks rolling, again.
We’re not powerful, because we’re not difficult to replace. Stop thinking that we’re special, important, in-demand, and/or irreplaceable. We’re none of those things. If they could get a monkey to sit still long enough, they could train monkeys to replace us. There are already computers that can do so; but the depreciative cost of the equipment is still greater than the cost of a human driver. It won’t be, forever. We’re not doctors – our skills are not so important or refined as to be valued. Most of us can’t go a week without a paycheck, without courting financial disaster. Shutting down for a week hurts us WAY more than it helps, and it is more likely to help trucking companies than truck drivers.
Wow!!!! MrYowler !! I couldnt have said it any better!! Transportation is i n high demand… NOT our Skill or lack there of!!
knight transport still $.33 nothings changed in 6 years !
CRST institutes largest pay increase in over 50 years…they say, starting Oct 15th, 2013.
I am not surprised that some companies will not give raises! I see some tremendous ways that companies can provide raises for next year, but everyone needs to be on board (From the CEO, President, Middle Management, Supervisors, drivers and mechanics, and finally all the office staff). It has to be with an open mind that approach happens or it will not happen at all!
First, the upper management strongly provides a sense of commitment to the project. (Attitude reflects leadership).
Second, is to have strong plan ready to go into place to jump start this (Examples: Change some old practices such as not forcing drivers to get there when their Hours of Service have run out, a profit sharing program, a good training program and not one which provides a driver with a good nights sleep, listening to the drivers ideas, which can be exhausting at times, but extremely important, listening to the staff from the top down, and most of all remember that everyone plays a part in the success of the business).
That is the major strength of the business!
Third, by making the employees a true part of the process, they will have a better understanding where they are spending unnecessary money. ONE major location is “Workman’s Compensation”.
Please let me explain. Workman’s Compensation is extremely important to the truly injured person and nothing but the best care should be provided!
When it comes to smaller claims which can possibly be avoided by good training, having a good hiring process and that does not start and stop with the just the background checks, it needs to be more than that (get to know the people who you are hoping to hire – yes that may cost a little more in the beginning, but on the other end the costs will drop) truly respecting the employees, the claims will decrease which will increase the bottom line.
The bottom line is what upper management solely feeds on!
Injuries are one of the largest costs to a business, and we all know that!
From my experience, by hiring people you can count on, remove the ones that will not come on board to a better way, the companies costs will dramatically go down, moral will go up and so will the profits, and so will the profit sharing for the employees.
I will be glad to come to any company and speak about this or show how it can be done on either a custom basis or a generic basis.
Have an awesome day!
It should be noted,the driver is the MOST important cog in the wheel, and compensation and treatment should reflect such. Even if it means the “higher ups” have to do with less. From my grand father,my father ,right on down to myself,we forfeited an excessively ritzy lifestyle to ensure the drivers were always top priority. It’s like sending in secondary troops without sending in the infantry first. Those trucks will not roll by themselves.
They say they can’t afford to rase the pay well this is how I see it. They the big trucking co. Has a set profit margin that they will not go below. That is what determines if they can afford to rase pay or not.
I was niave at the cpm…ive only worked at two large carriers…one out of lancaster tx 34cpm $62k and one outta Nebraska 44cpm $48k and never home….im.on.% now and get $134 a day layover and i dont have to fight/beg for anything…i was almost glad i didnt get raises…im.nota.kiss ass so wasnt on.the good buddy list for miles.. If u get a raise expect to sit more. Its just hype and manipulation
cheyenne
Why don’t you tell the rest of the guys just where this ideal job is and just what they need to do to get on???
Sounds like BS to me…
It’s not about a list of bad companies it’s about drivers having a list of questions when talking to recruiters. You know what you like, and don’t like. Have a prepared list to ask the recruiter. If everything sounds good ask for the recruiters email address. Confirm everything they told you in that email you send and ask them to reply stating that everything is correct. If they refuse or just simply don’t move on to the next company because some or all of what they told you is bull. If they do confirm your email then it is no longer a he said she said situation and you have proof on your side. Drivers tend to take recruiters word for it and 3 months later walk away pissed off feeling like they were lied to. Guess what folks, recruiters lie.
Trucking company recruiters and army recruiters are cut from the same cloth. We were told we would have a room with an ocean view,and they were right,it was a tent in the Philippines.
Come on now, you can’t expect recruiters to get a new driver if they told the God awful truth in regards to the trucking industry. You will be force dispatched! You will only get 1 day off for 7 worked. You will wait around the clock for a load. You will go to shippers who offer NO bathrooms. We will ensure that you use up every hour on your 70. The list list goes on. So recruiters must be creative and paint rosy pictures in the minds of drivers. Bottom line people need a job to feed their families and will bend until broken.
Proof that a recruiter lied to you is meaningless; almost every carrier has you sign a disclaimer stating that you understand that the carrier is promising you nothing. The military has a similar disclaimer. Worst case; the recruiter simply claims to have been mistaken, or made an error, or something changed recently – whatever it it, your only recourse when you’ve been lied to, is to quit.
And if you start from the assumption that the recruiter is going to lie to you, then what is the point of asking them questions? If you already know that the answers will not be truthful, then no matter how well-thought-out your questions are, at the end of the day you still know exactly as much as if you had asked no questions at all – which is to say, nothing.
Yea cowan at c&s has many mcmanagers
The problem is they have rookies the comany like this some they dont have to pay nothing a comany from salt lake
As long as they can pay less and make money …why would they ever pay more???
The final paragraph says it all. I am with a smaller fleet, and we just got increased compensation across the board. The fleet has also bought a lot of new trailers to replace aging equipment, and our turnover has generally been in the 20ish percentage range. And we go into the same customers that the megafleets go in to, as well as having some exclusive contract stuff of our own. The big fleets need to look at what the smaller carriers with low turnover are doing that makes the difference, if they have any intention of improving their lot. Seems doubtful that they really have any desire to improve as this high turnover thing has been an inherent part of large carrier business for over a couple of decades now.
Bah!… Let the MEGA carriers go buh bye!… Paper may show they’ve got excellent safety records, but the TV watching-while-driving noobies they hire trained by 6 month “veterans” coupled with 60-63mph trucks in the name of fuel savings are all bad business!
When Regan deregulated the trucking industrywide. Everyone in the Industry said it would not work… Except the shippers, they thought it was great. Well it has been for them (some more than others) i believe we need to go back to regulated commodities transported by 100 wt. Fees instead of line haul lane rates. Shippers have been keeping their cost down long enough at my expense.
Nice!
Not defending Reagan here,but The deregulation of the trucking industry began with the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which was signed into law by President Carter on July 1, 1980.
mine won’t, gotta keep the owner just as rich as possible while only the “chosen few” get new equipment & raises, the rest of us who work very hard and perform well, but refuse to kiss someones ass to get someplace are completely forgotten. In my company drivers “are a dime a dozen”. The good book says you reap what you sew, well sit back and watch what happens. Its gonna get interesting.
The problem does not stem to the customer. It in fact stems to the owners,and the corporate letter heads and dispatchers that have to get their quarterly and year end bonuses for saving the company money. Yes the customer has some play. But the bottom line is the blood sucking crooks that run and operate the company. Not to mention our Government. has tied the trucking industries hand like they are trying to tie the american publics. When everyone wakes up and notices whats really happening you cant fix the problems.
you have to raise rates to pay drivers more then shipper has to pay more to get product shipped so then they raise the price of products to their customers who then raise the prices for the consumer so its a never ending vicious cycle. on the other hand I don’t feel sorry for people who run on a mileage basis. I did it for a year didn’t like it and went to percentage and never looked back. nice thing about percentage is when rates go up your pay goes up. been on percentage base for 9 years now 7 of them as a company driver and 2 as an owner op. as for deregulation that’s the best thing that ever happened in my opinion, now if they would just deregulate the driver it would be a lot better
Its not necessarily a ” given” that carriers have to raise their rates to the shipper, they could just lower their acceptable profit margin. Or, start passing on the detention charges they charge the shipper and then make the driver fight them for it. Greed drives everything except the trucks fellas. The only thing a driver can do if he has tried to negotiate with his mgmt. and failed is vote with his feet.
there seems to be a furious disconnect, not just in the trucking industry, but across all industries. Beancounters feverishly crunch numbers and can’t figure out why holding down pay to drivers isn’t computing into higher earnings. Driver’s feverishly work harder under tighter regulations. The insurance companies try to decide who to disclude next to offer savings to clientele. Service is an afterthought, quality is barely mentioned. And the deciders only seek to prove their learning correct, for if it is faulty they are meaningless… and so it goes.
Well said Danny!
Hey Mr. Company Exec, want to keep drivers? Try paying them for ALL of the work they do. Dispatchers are paid for everything they do from the start of their day to the end. Accountants are paid for the same as are janitors and mechanics. How many companies pay drivers for doing pre-trip or post trip inspections, for fueling a truck, for ALL of the time spent at a customer’s dock waiting to get loaded or unloaded, sweeping out a trailer or any of the other things drivers are expected to do as “part of the job”? The company that pays drivers for ALL of the work they do will have no problem with keeping them around.
Exactly. We don’t need big increases in mileage pay, just fair compensation for ALL we do and for the time we spend away from home. Walmart leads the way here with hourly pay at the dock and a lump sum for every night spent sleeping in the truck.
want to keep drivers?..quit lying to them,hold dispatchers responsible for their screw ups..20 years in this business the driver gets blamed more then the idiots dispatching them..happens when you hire college kids to dispatch loads..these owners of companies wont let go of their money that easy..dollar to econmy..the 40 cents they offer is the same as the 20 cpm 20 years ago..they lay claim you get paid for experience..i worked at 1 that paid me .43cpm however i soon found out that wasnt squat when a 3 month rooky makes the same money..would you expect a driver who has more experience to except a trucking school grad to make the same as you?..
Absolutely Stop Loading Cheap Freight !!! If every carrier, owner operator , and the unions would come together, we can raise the freight rates to the amounts needed… But until this happens and people keep hauling cheap under rated freight, nothing is going to change..
Leave The Cheap Loads Where They are Sitting….
I work for Conway Truckload and they the drivers out at .30 per mile
This is something to think about when applying for a driving job. Ask if the truck will run the speed limit. If you drive 70 mph for 10 hours and are paid 40 cpm that is 700 miles @ 40 cpm $280 for 10 hours work. Compared to driving 60 mph for 10 hrs @ 40 cpm which is $240 for 10 hrs work. If you work 5 days a week that’s $200 per week or $800 a month or $9600 a year. The trucking company which are regulated by the insurance company will show you how much more fuel the truck will burn at 70 mph than it will burn at 60 mph but they will not show you the amount of fuel the truck will burn having to run an extra hour @ 60 mph for the same miles nor will the explain to you that you have to sit in that drivers seat for over an hour extra every day at 60 mph. or they could pay you 46.5 cpm and even it up but wait they do give you a 1 or 2 cpm fuel bonus. These large and small carriers sit and figure ways to beat you out of your hard earned money like practical miles and pc miler then they will argue with you that your speedometer is wrong right along with your gps. I actually had a owner of a few trucks tell me that gps is wrong more times than it is right and his drivers believed him for a couple of months because that’s as long as they could work for 26 cpm and survive.
Can you say “seat meat”. That’s what most of the large, mega carriers specialize in. Your small carriers they’re referring to don’t waste money on all the technology needed to “baby-sit” these drivers. It also means they don’t have to hire massive amounts of personnel to monitor, & train, those drivers……..they hire a qualified driver that they can trust to turn loose. Add the fact they don’t have to have a massive advertising budget, to replace all the drivers churning, and they can afford better pay & benefits.
I just left a company that starts ALL drivers – regardless of experience – at .31/mile. That means if you have 10 yrs good driving and the next driver has 6 months or less then you both get paid the same. Now that company announced higher pay but the driver has to hit several bonuses to get it. If they miss on, say, fuel mileage by even .05% they don’t get that bonus. They still could be at .31 or .32/ mile even doing their best. Too many “what if’s”. Just pay drivers a good wage and be done with it. No more stipulations.
Want to know why wages have steadily remained low and unchanged? Look in the mirror. It’s you the driver who continues to work for garbage carriers like CR, Schneider, JB, etc.
Why would a large carrier pay 46cpm when they have some clown willing to drive for 25cpm? Why would a large carrier pay detention time when they have drivers willing to sit all day for free?
If you’re willing to be out for weeks and end there is no reason to settle for less then 60k. That is the absolute minimum of what you should value yourself at. I make 55k and am home daily, off weekends and work a grand total of around 45 hours a week. I get pay for everything I do which is how it should be.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
sad thing is when i asked to why the rate of pay has not changed since the 80s the reply is your allowed to go faster hence your pay raise but the govenor was not changed DUH.
Perfect.
I look at these big company ads ever so often and laugh.
Let the newbies work for nothing and let these companies spend millions rehiring constantly.
My skills are not for sale to the lowest bidder – and I have more than enough work.
🙂
See here what I mean:
“Logistics company seeks quality driver to run PA to Maine.
MUST HAVE 3 years experience and a clean CDL A License. All No Touch, 53′ Dry Vans.
TRACTOR TRAILERS MON- FRI ON THE ROAD
Home every weekend. Take home cash $150 per day. Plenty of work.
Looking for F/T and P/T drivers to start ASAP. ”
hahahahahaha – they must be kidding….
Whatever u do avoid jb hunt an d swift
it’s always been like that. I work for a very small carrier of 30 trucks. we just got a pay raise and new equiptment. our csa is extremely low. so we get better rates and the longer mile loads. I have worked for quite a few major fleets in the past. they use the driver as a door mat. or a way to get federal or state hiring grants. so major fleet drivers spend the first 6 months paying there selves. after the grant money runs out. the major trucking company can’t afford to pay the driver very well. so the tell operations to cut the miles to get the driver to quit. and now with govornment shut down. has every one noticed that major trucking companies are slowing down on hiring company drivers. and now they are putting ads out for lease purchase drivers.
The stockholders are being paid out to much along with some executives of the mega carriers. So keep losing drivers and just deal with it, sooner or later when it comes crashing down the stockholders and executives have themselves to blame. Drivers are looking for reasonably good money, benefits, and fair treatment, so talk is cheap, actions speak louder than words.