Demand For New Truck Drivers Hits High Gear

In business, there is the 2 basic truths ... "it's cheaper to pay a little more for good help (within reason)", and, "it's cheaper to keep a customer happy then to try and get them back after they left". But apparently things are changing or the trucking industry is exempt from these basic rules.

But honestly, the nature of trucking is what makes or breaks many drivers, not so much raw abilities. And while better pay may help to KEEP the better echelon of drivers on-board, it will also work to attract STILL MORE who have no business driving trucks (to fill natural attrition shortages). Those who are truly destined to drive, are going to drive, regardless of pay. And the carrier's HR and bean-counter departments know this.

Also, you can blame the Federal and CA EPA departments for a lot of the slow rise in wages. All that additional money that HAS to be incurred for the new, very expensive engine technologies has to come from somewhere until rates can catch up and driver wages are where there is the most money available.

 

If truckstop parking availability is any indication theres no shortage of drivers... Just a lack of ones that will tolerate the wages. "We need you! There are no drivers! Here's a quarter"

 

Treat ur drivers right and they won't leave. We get great benefits and decent pay.

 

The big "starter" companies get tax credits and tax breaks for employing those who have problems getting jobs . . . having been an employer, I am familiar with the tax credits and breaks offered to employers for employing certain people. There are a lot of newer drivers getting into the industry because they have been downsized out of a job over the last several years, and the companies get credits and breaks for hiring these people. They put them through their own schools if they have them, put them through training, send them out with out a real clue, since there are trainers who only have 3 months experience training new drivers, and they don't care what happens. Depending on the size of the company, paying more and keeping better employees is better business, and for others, the revolving door doesn't affect their bottom line in the least because they have such a low operating cost per truck. That's what it really comes down to, is the operating cost per truck. Swift/Werner/Celadon etc, have a much lower operating cost per truck than the outfit with 25 trucks, and that outfit has a lower per truck cost than the two truck guy.

 

Driver training is going to be the next big thing the FMCSA is going to work on. I went to Roadmasters yesterday to talk about a refresher course and had a great conversation with the admissions officer aboit this. She said one of the rules already coming down the pipe is that the 3rd party testers CANNOT also be instructors at that same school. Meaning your instructor on the range cannot be the guy you do the driver test for. They can be one or the other but not both. There was some others about perhaps making The company trainers at least have 1-2 years anf a clean driving record before they could train. This is going to be interesting.

Now the actual shortage? Every article I have ever read mentions the low pay, huge load unload times and the hardships of being gone so much and who do they interview for the articles? The Swifts, The CR Englands, The Werners, The Covenants. All companies that train, that have 100%+ turnover rates and are the lowest paying, highest turnover cdl mills in the industry.

I had a point I was going to make and I totally forgot WTH it was sorry

 

I laughed. Sad thing about it is that it's true

 

Like some others have suggested, there are tax incentives, but that still doesn't offset the cost of hiring a new driver. It's something like $4000 depending on which company you look at, and the tax break doesn't cover all that... the problem is the way the industry is built though. The big companies compete on price so they find the cheapest labor available. What you say makes sense, but even if they wanted to change and pay more for better drivers, how do you start that transition? Recruiting, orientation, and training are all known costs (more or less) so there's little or no guesswork involved and it's easy to track. There's more complexity involved with raising pay rates and it's really difficult to determine the cost/benefit of that - if you give several thousand drivers a 1 cpm raise, you fundamentally affect the bottom line, you change your cost structure, you change your prices, and you take on a lot of risk... for one cent per mile. How do you ever determine how effective that will be without actually implementing it? You can bet the executives are running the numbers on it. It's all about money, after all.

 

Conway freight would be ltl making descent. Money difrent than cfi. Aka conway truckload interesting that even they have to look for students though

 

Actually, no, I did not read the article. I didn't get the impression we were talking about the History Of Truck Driving Schools.

 

All I know is I've been laid up with a work-related injury for six week! ARRRGGGHHH!!

So considering how AWESOME I am? Probably looking for six drivers to cover for me.