Driver shortage, yet not enough miles?

The idea of a driver shortage is a myth perpetuated to keep wages low. As long as you have an overabundance of hungry drivers, you can treat them however and pay them whatever. So they keep cranking them out, but the reality doesn't match up to the hype.

 

I don't know if it's the companies perpetuating a myth or not, but it seems that saying there is a driver shortage is an easy way to deflect the real problem(like you said): Low wages and sub-human treatment.

 

Based on the laws of supply and demand.... a driver shortage would increase an existing drivers worth, but since the Feds regulate your driving time, in turn they are also regulating your income to a point. Since a driver can only drive so many hours at a time, companies must hire more drivers to insure that they can service the companies which they contract with.

Since drivers are not allow to drive but so many hours, as I have calculated 50mph average for 11 drivable hours = 550 miles per day x 6 days = 3300 miles per week. All this is an assumption of drivable miles and not intended on being exact.

 

I think you have this back words?
They say rates went up with the last hours of service change. Maybe they will go up again.

 

My theory is yes, there is a definite driver shortage. And the reason why some drivers can't get good mileage is that it is hard for a company to keep consistent accounts when they don't have enough drivers.

A company may promise a customer they'll have 80 trucks per week at the warehouse but when you have drivers quitting and/or not enough drivers to begin with, the company won't have the account for very long. If a company loses enough accounts then the mileage becomes very spotty for the drivers that are still hanging in there.

So sometimes drivers just have to hang in there and tough it out for a while. Alot of times when you jump ship, it hurts you and the company in the long run.

It's basically a catch-22 for companies; They need alot of drivers to land a sugar daddy account, but in order to attract drivers they already need to have the sugar daddy accounts.

 

The law of Supply and demand states: short supply, high wages/cost.

By keeping the industry in perpetual shortage. Self induced.

It allows the companies to receive Federal Funding for training new drivers. In turn they pay these drivers reduced rates. And when they have a malfunction or stay for more than a year, toss them out with the trash, get another driver at a reduced rate. Increasing profits.

There is no shortage of drivers. Only a shortage of honest companies.

If companies were forced to hire from the availiable pool of drivers, they would quickly raise rates ... not pay.

The bottom line is profit. And the way to increase that profit by an immediate 10% is to hire a student who will work for 15-25% less than a driver with 1 year experience.

Hence the screams about driver shortages.