We should park our units

Got a couple of friends on the recruiting side of things. It ain't looking good there, either.

For every 20 drivers offered a position, maybe 12 actually show up. Lose at least one to drug testing (no sympathy, f 'em!), probably lose a couple more to physical or agility testing, and half the rest need retraining of some nature.

And that's on the dry van/reefer side! Imagine what's going on in flatbed!

Too many older drivers retiring out due to age, infirmity, or yes, e-logs. Not enough younger drivers coming in fresh. The churn in the driver pool continues, but that pool is slowly but surely getting smaller.

Keep yet eyes open, people! This year is gonna see a lot of changes industry wide. Between the capacity cuts due to e-logs and driver retention factors, the increase in production forecasted, and possible immigration law changes, we are in for a ride!

 

"We are scraping the bottom of the barrel now to find new drivers."

That's what a friend of mine told me a few weeks ago who is an operation center manager of a company with a thousand trucks.

 

I'm all for anyone who wants to start a new business, it's America.

However, getting one's own authority now is a little more complicated than it used to be, primarily because of insurance rates. It's very expensive now for most new entrants.

 

I, personally, am getting ready to hire my first official driver for $70k salary, driver's pay should go up across the board and that should bring more people in. That's the theory

 

I didn't understand if you meant from here or from other countries when you said bring more drives over. That's all.

 

Well, what did the larger carriers expect? They have done their best to make trucking as unappealing as possible.

Remember just after the crash of '08? How many people jumped into trucking after they lost their "real jobs" cause they thought it was an easy way to make money? And how many of them stuck around after the economy rebounded? Now, the economy is increasing. More and more of those "real jobs" are gonna be available and screaming for workers. Who in the check would want to be a truck driver, netting a $750/wk paycheck and living in a box smaller than some prison cells for weeks if not months at a time?

Things are changing. Slowly. This ELog mandate is gonna make things change faster. Like it or not, the rules and regulations are going to create a better overall working environment for us drivers.

And the overwhelming majority of drivers I hear complaining about the rules are the old hands who ain't never done it that way, Dagnabit! The younger drivers, or the drivers like myself that adapted early aren't whining and sniveling anywhere near as hard (if at all). We are out here, quietly doing our jobs and reaping the benefits.

 

I work in operations for a 30 truck fleet and we're going thru the same thing. We have to hire and fire about 10 worthless drivers for every decent one we find. And that's not just company drivers. That's o/o s too

 

I got into this industry late. 2009 to be exact. I was in construction my whole vocational life. Ran my own business for years. Then the recession hit, and I mean hard! Started driving at 52, for peanuts really.

Put in my time and moved up and along. I'm now an owner operator. I don't ever plan to go back to what I was doing. There's housing and building going on around us again. I have no desire to flip the switch, man.

However, I can clearly see why the younger guys just might want to do so. That's part of what is happening now. When you factor age attrition and all the bull-crap regulations, along with employment getting better on a whole, why in the heck wouldn't some younger mid 20/30/40 guys consider jumping ship.

If I were younger, I certainly would...

 

It isn't just spot market rates that are going up.
Contract rates are on the upswing too.
Found out today a haul I do from Omaha to ny that always has paid well went up another 600.00 bucks .
Will the party last ? Who knows ?
But im getting while the getting is good .

 

I feel your pain. I worked in operations for over a year with a trucking company. It was mind boggling the crapola we had to deal with some of our drivers. How some of them even obtained their CDL was a mystery to me.