Is there really a trucker shortage?

Trucking is good money. 65 to 70k is good money. Unless you're a manager, you ain't making 65k stocking shelves, so shelve that narrative(pardon the pun). The pay could be 100k but we will always have the same discussion for what was said in the midst of your post, because very few people, not just kids, want to be away from home working and missing out on everything. Work-life balance is nonexistent if you go OTR.

 

he’s asking if you ever worked 70 hours on one job. Those 30 hours of OT would make it where you make more then trucking. That’s his math.

 

Ahhhhhh point taken. I misunderstood then. I did some quick math at a rate of 17 an hour. That's average wage where I live, give or take. I factored in 30 hrs at time and a half. It's about a wash.....and if you're working 70 hrs per week, you ain't really living a life much different than a trucker. You're just sleeping in your own bed. Most non trucking jobs don't even allow you to get overtime. I used to work for the Walmart back in the day..they were not giving out overtime for nothing, and they were strict about it too. Then I've worked fast food, and more often than not, 40 hrs weekly was a pipe dream. That's probably why I think trucking is far more lucrative.

 

that’s the thing you gotta compare apples to apples.

Most drivers are basically minimum wage employees when you factor in the hours they put in.

being an owner operator is where it’s at and with your own numbers you can net 4k a week basically doing nothing.

 

If you're netting 4k per week, you're probably in the upper 5 percent. I can't imagine that every owner operator is netting that much weekly, especially in the spot market. It's only so much to go around. It's just like company drivers, a company may advertise 85k or higher. They just use their top earner to put a number out there for advertising purposes. Sure every driver can make a living. 95 percent of those drivers won't see 85k. I'd also question is that driver would see that number every year. At what I am paid per mile, I'd have to run in the ballpark of 160k miles in a year. That ain't a guarantee each year. Everyone sees that line and thinks that they are automatically entitled to that high number, and you'll have to not go home much and have some luck to be in that high percentile. At the end of the day, we are all competing to get to the top, where it ain't much room there. That's regardless of being a company driver or owner operator.

 

I worked as a teacher with 4 different courses and was working on my mandatory masters. So 80 hour, 6 day weeks for $45,000.

My sister was a manager at Starbucks - 60 hour weeks with split shifts - $40,000 salary.

 

I think he was being facetious

 

Perhaps he was. Honestly I'm not so sure he wasn't serious, but there are a lot of drivers who will buy the hype, then get mad at the world lol

 

The thing is not everyone’s made out to be an O/O.

I can net 4k a week on a bad year too. I personally wouldn’t say 5% more of 60% pull that weekly. Hell there’s guys here that put up proof on $3-4 mile.

I’m currently on a 2300 mile trip at $3.90 per mile. If you don’t believe it, that’s fine but think about it.

driver gets 60-70cpm
Truck needs 1.25-1.75pm to run.
That puts the owner of truck at $2.50 per mile on average just to run the truck. Tack on administrative costs and profit and your looking at $3 per mile or more.

So 4k at minimum is doable.

 

I just turned down a driving job starting @27. They dont pay overtime and said its 50-60 hours a week. I make less than that at a factory but if I worked 50-60 hours a week with overtime it would be the same pay so why would i leave where in at??? I guess that means theres a driver shortage....