During a recent conference call reported on by Fleetowner, multiple different trucking industry analysts weighed in on the state of the industry. One point that was brought up by multiple participants: Driver wages are about to go up.
Executives from the National Transportation Institute talked about how a perfect storm of circumstances is approaching. There is an increasing lack of drivers due to changing demographics and low wages just as there looks like there will be a significant increase in freight demand. Rates will likely go up, and the competition for drivers could get fierce.
Leah Shaver, NTI’s COO, says it’s not just wages that will be on the rise, but sign-on bonuses as well. According to Shaver, $10,000 sign on bonuses paid out over the course of 12 months will be popular. That number could increase to $20,000 for teams.
According to another analyst, driver pay “could easily increase in the 5% to 7.5% range.” But if that seems like a lot, analysts also point out that driver wage increases in the past have been vastly outpaced by other sectors.
For example, according to Jason Seidl, an analyst with Cowen & Co., between 2006 and 2017, for-hire truck driver income increased 6.3%. Compare that to the minimum wage which increased 45.6%, or pay at companies like McDonald’s which went up by 94.2% during the same time period.
So while driver pay has been going up for the past 4 years and looks like it will continue to climb, that’s due in part to a capacity crunch caused – at least partially – by low driver pay.
According to Seidl though, there’s reason for some enthusiasm.
“We are seeing a [trucking] market that will potentially take off,” said Seidl. “We are at the edge of the cliff we’ve talked about for a long time and never reached.”
Source: fleetowner, NTI, truckersreport
shogun says
Analysts are like consultants. Essentially worthless. Why any business owner who hire either is beyond me. The driver shortage is a myth. There is a shortage of drivers willing to work for 1990’s cpm rates, and a shortage of companies willing to haul cheap freight from greedy brokers. Hey, whaddayaknow, i am now an analyst/consultant.
Dohn Joe says
Haha so true. These rat nasties need to stop giving drivers hope. The pay has been the same for 30 years.
Shane P says
not just greedy, freedy AF!
Blue says
The driver shortage is relative to the needs of the trucking industry, not relative to the total pool of available potential drivers. If the trucking industry has more empty seats than currently hired drivers, then they have a driver shortage. Unless and until all seats are able to be filled with drivers, it will remain so. If they need 50,000 drivers, but only have 45,000 hired, it doesn’t matter if there are 1 million available drivers, the trucking industry has a driver shortage.
James willett says
That’s a opinion of yours not an analysis. Just sayin.
Mark says
There is some truth to this. I am a local driver, the lead driver at our branch, working in distribution. After talking with my manager a few months ago, he hooked me up with the regional manager, with whom I had the following conversation – I told him that there is a severe driver shortage, told him about some of the jobs (and pay) available out there after looking at various hiring sites, and told him he needed to bump my pay or I’d be moving on. He asked what I was looking for. I told him $3/hr would keep me for a year, and then we’d talk again, or $5/hr would keep me for 3 years. He gave me the $3, retroactive to the start of the previous month. He knew about the shortage because we have had 2 temps working because they could not hire full time driver employees…they just weren’t coming in for what was being offered. They bumped the pay up, and voila…2 new employees.
Your mileage may vary, but it worked for me.
John Cox says
Hook us up Mark.
Animal16365 says
If you want drivers. Your going to have to compete with the regular job market. Right now in realistic terms. The average driver wage is between 42-47k. (Company driver wages). This figure needs to be higher. Some were in the 80-90k
Eso says
It would be much more than my doctor makes… imagine how hard is to get doctor’s degrees here and how much it costs.
Floyd says
If every trucking company started a driver at $82k a year like Walmart drivers, driver shortage solved.
Geoffrey McCord says
It’s not the trucking company that actually does the hiring it’s the trucking insurance company that dictates who gets hired and who doesn’t. A trucking company can have all of the drivers that they want to hire but if the insurance company says no Then they don’t. There is not a shortage of drivers there is a shortage of good drivers. Insurance companies could care less about the economic demand increases for freight.
Paul says
Right on the money.
Glenn says
Yep that’s absolutely correct! I know that firsthand and I’ve been told by countless companies ‘We’d love to have your experience on board, but because you haven’t driven in the past year our insurance carrier won’t allow us to hire you.”
I’ve been off the road since Oct 2016 for personal reasons, have 2 million safe driving miles in the past 20 yrs, no accidents, no tickets, no issues whatsoever.
It all depends on who the carriers insurance company is whether or not they’ll consider hiring me. A couple companies said I’d have to ride with a trainer for a week. I told them to stick it. Seriously?
No doubt the insurance industry runs the trucking industry and pulls all the strings. If a trucking company wants lower ins rates, the ins companies tell them to put computers in their trucks, dashboard cameras, driver facing cameras and on and on. And the insurance companies have the most powerful lobbyists in Washington so if you’re driving a rig, you’re essentially working for an insurance company in a round-about way because they’re the ones actually controlling the transportation industry .
Yeah it royally sucks.
Edward says
If you are still looking, maybe call Britton Transport. They have main office in Grand Forks, ND. Have flatbed div in Sioux Falls or van/reefer div in Grand Forks. I was in the same situation as you. Almost 19 years experience but a year off the road. Several companies where a no go. Britton didn’t even bat an eye. Welcome aboard. 6 happy years later I’m still here.
Bill Flatt says
Heard the same thing for years. Driver pay will go up .02 per mile while the execs get more toys!
Chris Jones says
cheap freight , and greedy brokers is what’s killing the owner operater if you don’t believe that just hook up to a grain trailer and haul some corn to a chicken feed mill like Tyson or Simmons then you will no why chicken plants are multi billionaires an truck drivers are setting on the side of the road out of fuel
Scott Hayden says
When you see freight rotting on the docks, then and ONLY then can you believe there is a driver shortage.
Companies are “short on drivers” like they are “short on cash”. The more drivers you have, the more money you stand to make. Simply put, he who has drivers, gets the freight. If Company A can’t accept a load because they have no driver, Company B or C or whoever has an available driver will get the load.
Freight continues to move and the shelves continue to be stocked. I have yet to see prices raise because there is a problem getting a truck to deliver the product.
Simple economics.
Robert G says
Companies want more drivers than available freight.
They don’t care if you sit waiting. It doesn’t cost them anything. They will let you sit until freight is available.
If they have drivers waiting all over the country. They are positioned for the next load.
So if they don’t have drivers sitting. They have a driver shortage.
James willett says
Most freight is contracted by the big company’s, every year or so the sign new contracts.if they don’t have a driver in the area they farm it out to O/O or smaller companies. Prime is one of the biggest that does this.C.H Roberson is nother.
Jason says
You just have to find the right company. The big carriers pay garbage wages but they’re the way into the experience you need to get the better jobs.
Chris says
Theres plenty of jobs out there were youre home every night and the pay is better than driving.
I believe all of this wage hype when I see it on my W2.
Snowman says
This is “somewhat” true. I drove local for 3 years and every year I got a raise. By the time I left the job, I was making .55cpm and $25.50/hr for all On Duty time. The problem was that the more compensation I received, the less work I had. Started making $80k/yr and towards the end I was struggling to make $70k/yr with higher pay. I cashed out my 401k and went owner operator. Done with that local crap.
James says
I do not care how much you raise driver pay , you can pay $5.00 dollars a mile , if you don’t give drivers the miles to earn a living , pay really doesn’t matter.
Kurt says
I hope my boss reads this memo
Jeremy says
I know that government suits will look at how many individuals possess a CDL but what eludes them is that many of these people have never turned a mile in a big truck other than in the crappy training course they took and got ripped off for.It’s difficult to get the foot in the door at the beginning of one’s trucking career and we all know that.Furthermore,many do get an employment opportunity in the beginning only to discover they bit off more than they could chew.This gig isn’t for everybody.Many years ago,I was in a team operation with a new driver who walked away half way through the turn.He just disappeared.I came out to the truck to discover he and all his stuff was gone,1200 miles from our home terminal.I guess he took the bus and went back to his career in accounting.
I walked away from the industry in January,2016 after 19 years in.I still have my CDL and am certainly keeping my eye on hourly rates for local drivers that have been on the increase,like the article says.I figure when I see $25 starting wages from general freight carriers in my neck of the woods,I may get back in.
The trucking industry did this to itself and this current scenario was predictable.Too many guys with ties in an industry they really know nothing about.The tightest ships in this industry are smaller outfits,run by a trucker,that are specialized.Even flat deck/curtain side LTL has been considered specialized for many years now.Big outfits usually can’t handle stuff like this.It’s all dependent on the skills of dispatch,for starters.These skilled individuals are disappearing from the industry.What we have had to replace them is a bunch of no minds starring into an idiot box all day logged into “load pimp.com”.My 12 year old niece could do that in her spare time after school.
Jeff Fox says
I find articles like this absolutely hilarious! Mainly due to the fact that while they try to spin some hype in a sad attempt to get new drivers, they still are NO WHERE CLOSE to actually being competitive. Most new drivers make somewhere between 900-$1000 per week just starting out, or roughly $143 dollars per day. While this may sound awesome to the uninformed(or to people who live in greedy states that refuse to pay a decent minimum wage) the truth is that this “Starting wage” is actually quite low to be attracting new potential drivers. I left trucking to be a flagger, and I actually make more money doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING then I did as a driver and I am home every night…..
This is where the true problem lies. While this article touched on it ever so briefly, it refused to explore it. The problem is that new potential drivers can earn just as much working locally as they would driving. So raising the wage 5%-7% is a waste of time. What needs to happen if they truly want to attract new drivers(who are willing to endure the rough life on the road) is that all pay needs to be doubled. You may call me crazy, consider this: What motivation does a new driver have to endure the training, the separation from family, to deal with an infrastructure that is 20-30 years behind the times? There currently is NONE. While signing bonuses look appealing on paper, in the real world they are not enough. Without a 100% complete overhaul of the pay structure, companies will continue to lose quality drivers, as they find local opportunities that pay just as well(often times better) then diving does.
Johnny holt says
JEFF FOX,bet you can’t say that to those idiots that drives for swift,Werner and so on most of them are lucky they bring home $300 a week especially if they’ve had a advance for that week because most of them are broke before they climb in a truck
John Cox says
Great points.
But the government and the Big companies will just flood more foreigners in to take them jobs.
claude says
yes there is a driver shortage, about half of what is out there is not drivers, more like wheel holders, most can not even drive a manual transmission, or know how to load a truck legal, tell them you get 20 pallets 2,000 per pallets , then ask how do you want it load ? then you get that deer in the headlite look !
Paul says
So that’s the drivers fault? Or the greedy companies for never training them the right way?
L A Draper says
This fake news is meant to keep drivers from quitting or pulling over when the eld mandate hits. I’ve been driving si ce 01 and not much has changed. If I knew then what I know now is be a street sweeper.
John Cox says
Man I must be dirt 2001 ?
I’ve been driving for 30 years and I remember you actually pushed a Broom.
Lance FontanneSr says
I was making $32000 a year in 1979. For wages to have kept pace, a driver now should be making $110,000 a year. I had 40 years and 4 million miles with a perfect record — never a ticket, never a chargeable, and never been shut down at a scale. Once ELD’s started, I retired. Screw that crap.
John Cox says
Thank for you time.
30 yrs myself. I don’t get this ELD crap. The laws didn’t change but I can’t figure out how to do On Duty Not Driving for City moves nor the 115 ground miles rule. On top of that the 30 min rule is just BS as a local driver now.
What truckstop do we meet at for Sat coffee . LOL
Jeff Pilon says
If I pay .10 cpm and I have open trucks and no warm licienced body to fill it then I have a declared shortage of qualified drivers. Co s that pay well offer good bonuses have good Insurance for qualified professional drivers have no shortage and they have a respect for those people who hold those jobs. And subsequently there is a backlog of qualified applicants. When ELDS become mandatory bonuses will go to massive amounts as loads sit. Christmas will be interesting this year. Even if it finally arrives in July.
Qualified drivers will now get the respect we have long deserved as cheap drivers with no skills rack up points accidents and late fees.
Look out Mr Trump and Mrs Chung. This will be the biggest backfire since Truman’s chicken in every pot BS.
Barney Big Rig says
Of course there’s huge driver shortage!! Who in their right mind would want to work in GOV’T OVER REGULATED industry that has stranglehold on EVERYTHING you do as driver!! The population keeps increasing & the number of “QUALIFIED” drivers keeps declining due to being “nickeled & dimed” to death by ALL carriers!! When the drivers are working 66%more hrs.than the average person working 40hr.work weeks & only making an average of $40K-$53K(after taxes) 70hrs./weekly with NO overtime is NOT an option!! Sign on bonuses are just another gimmick to lure you in!! It’s like my late grandfather said “you catch the best fish by using the best bait!!” And ALL fish are hungry!! Analysts & Consultants have NEVER driven trucks in their lives & they have NO clue what the transportation industry is all about!! When the transportation network starts paying drivers by the hour(I.E.gov’t mandated minimum of $25/hr.) & OVERTIME after 40-45 hrs.weekly then you’ll see an increase in the number of QUALIFIED drivers accepting it as viable job to support their families!!💯🇺🇸👍😎
George Kalogeropoulos says
They will never pay by the hour -otherwise how can they continue stiffing the driver?It s a racket and every one knows it!
Johnny holt says
Drivers pay should have been up a long time ago not because of a shortage that’s gonna get shorter with the eld mandate because I’m set to get out of it,when it comes to elds I’ve been there and done that and won’t do it again.most of drivers here saying that they’re ok with elds don’t know better because they’re company won’t teach them any other way,it’s called being brainwashed with propaganda and bull shut, STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES I always say
Enough is enough says
Here I am, on my hour #3 waiting for an approval from my company, to replace a tire. I have EARNED 0 (zero) cents those 3 hrs and don’t know when it will end. They have no shortage of drivers. They are short from people willing to work for free.
Deadwood says
If you’re waiting three hours for a reply then that’s on you. Sometimes you’ve got to be the squeaky wheel to get the grease and that means having the cajones to stand up for yourself.
MartyM says
They keep crying driver shortage so they can keep a million people coming here from other countries, and keep wages down. So they are going to raise pay, the fuel tax is going up, can you see where this is going?
Lipko says
If this is true then why is Wal Mart Fleet starting out new driver’s at 38 cents per mile, taking away drivers driving the same truck all the time and eliminating most programs?
Thomas says
Let’s see here, driver pay not keeping up with inflation over the past 30 years ? Since CPM is the method to screw over drivers in the industry than Company Drivers just starting need to start at 80 CPM and go up from there, 10 or more years of experience will demand 90 CPM as Company drivers.
Dan says
Yup! The check is in the mail isn’t it! Don’t believe a word they say about the future , their crystal ball doesn’t work any better than yours does..
Anthony Suarez says
That is incorrect. My company’s pay went down for new hires. We all shop at this store.
Ken says
Sounds like a truck driver story, I call B***S*** !