True or not true: Trucking Industry Struggles With Growing Driver Shortage

To the OP, we don't have a driver shortage.

Even with quality drivers, there isn't one.

What there is, is this - there is a campaign on recruiting people to enter into this as just a job to make big bucks.

Nothing more and it insults all of us who treat this as a profession or skilled labor.

If we did have a shortage, we would have freight sitting for days waiting for someone to pick it up AND rates would be a lot higher with no choice for the shipper - you want that delivered in Dallas from here, it is now $5000 instead of $2700. For one very very large company, the last stat that I saw on product dwell time sitting on the docks was under 13 hours, and for those who know what that means, that's pretty good.

While some will cry, piss and moan about the pay, (and they may have justification to complain while many can't justify it), they seem not to get the bigger picture of this in either the labor market or how it actually works. On the micro-labor scale of things, there isn't a job out there where you can advance from school to make the average wage as everyone else.

I had this discussion with some of my drivers during the holidays, a few seemed to have had this idea of wage advancement has to happen no matter what but I asked them why would they think a driver deserves any more money when all they do is sit in the cab and control the truck. They are told what to do, when to do it and how to do it with no desire to think outside that cab - "its just a job man!". They pondered about that and then I asked them what is the difference between the guy who sits in his truck and plays games on a laptop or on their phone for hours and one that actually takes an interest in bettering themselves?

See what I am getting at.

The problem I and others have are finding people who have the same work standard and willingness to work for a customer. We are rewarded by the reoccurring use of our services while the megas, the crap owner and those who barely can keep their business running are the ones who hope on mass work to make money - just like Henry Ford and the model T.

 

They shouldn't have any trouble finding heavy drivers.

 

Most of us here will be in the cold, cold ground before we see driverless trucks. Fills an otherwise slow news day. As far as driver shortage, I don't think there is one,,,yet. The PROJECTED shortfall will come in several years, as there is a steady decline in applicants.

 

The job is difficult and not for everybody. I'd say less then 20% who want to try it, make it past 12 months of solo driving. They've dumbed the job down about as far as it can be dumbed down, but few still have the aptitude or desire to do it long term and make themselves an asset, as opposed to a permanent liability.

 

It wasn’t actually heavy haul. They just used that to get you to click the link.

I’m thinking sure I’ll do heavy haul under the right circumstances. Click the link... “get paid 12 cents a mile driving for swift!”

Yeah no thanks...

 

Another problem is carriers promote unrealistic 1st year earnings. Less then 5% can ever hope to achieve some of the advertising earnings in their first few years but they make it sound like "the norm".

Plus, many come in with unrealistic expectations of what the job truly is, especially OTR.

 

I saw a thing on driverless cars. They can be bullied into not moving because when something is in front of them they won’t hit it.

So people just keep cutting it off and it doesn’t move. So trucks would just be lined up on entrance ramps not moving for miles lol.

 

If there is driver shortage god help us on places to park.

 

If you rely on modern "journalism" to know something you will be almost as clueless as a Amazonian tribesman with no knowledge of the world beyond the next jungle clearing. Journalist know nothing about the topics they write about. They are paid to a) tell people what they already know or, b)tell people what they already know is wrong. The facts are not relevant in either case. A "journalist" that writes on Hollywood one day, Wall Street the next day, the military on the day after, and science the day after is clueless about all of them.

There is a severe driver shortage just like there is a severe shortage of super-models working at Wal Mart. There are exactly as many of both as the pay and condition attract. This job isn't being replaced by robots anytime soon even if the NYC natives that never drive a car all breathlessly tell each other it's about to happen. Journalist used to be trained to write grammatically correct stories. They don't even do that any more. They receive no subject-matter training during education. They are about as empty-headed as gym teachers, school teachers, and social workers. Any relation between what they say and reality is purely coincidental.