Is there really a trucker shortage?

You aren't being an #######. But if people leave their tomatoes out and you eat them all, that's different.

 

Conspiracy theorists will always be conspiracy theorists. The government doesn't need to do a thing. Times change organically.

 

They probably passed on you because they know you ain't gonna stay. They may not even get a year out of you. Businesses of any kind catch on to that. If they get the vibe that you're always looking for greener pastures, they may pass. My friend is on his 4th stint with P&S. They told him that if they even get the vibe he's looking elsewhere, they'll let him go. I was actually on their side. They really looked out for him, and took great care of him. He should have never left them from day one.

 

The pay and work conditions in trucking are attracting exactly the number and kinds of drivers that it should. "The Driver Shortage" is shorthand term for companies that want an infinite supply of cheap labor. You will know there is a real driver shortage when companies are racing each other to raise pay and improve conditions. Companies are still trying to get away with small pay raises and tricky bonuses. A few years ago one big trucking company started announcing some ridiculous bonus, was it $100,000? The small print mumbled you had to stay over a decade or more and other requirements to get that amount.

Is there a shortage of $5,000 new cars getting 100 miles per gallon? No. You can get a $5,000 car. You can get a high MPG car. You cannot just decide there ought to be millions of $5,000 cars that get 100 MPG. Well, you can if you are a "journalist" or a PR hack/Lobbyist for trucking companies.

 

Low pay and work conditions is kind of subjective. Bad work conditions, I'm not so sure about that. What would be defined as bad work conditions? The only thing that I think will truly deter people is the fact that you are away from home long stretches. Everything else is manageable to me, it's work. I'm not sure what people expect.

 

true that statement be.

the last job, that i retired from, i was able to do it in about 8.75, to 9.25 hours, 5 nights a week. going from Taunton, MA, up to Portland, ME, with stops going up there, along the way.

on snow nights, of course it was a tad bit longer, maybe an extra hour, cuz at the hours of 8PM to 5AM, and where i was??

hardly any traffic at all.

 

Of course, I'm not going to stay more than 4 or 5 months, that's a long time with no home time. Living overseas does have it's disadvantages and they can just keep hiring people from their CDL school and reap the profits of cheap labor. That cheap labor is going to tear #### up, but that's factored into the bottom line I'm sure.

If the country is not in flames or dead in the water come January, maybe I'll try to drive again or maybe not. I'm not going to kiss any ### or jump through many hoops to land a driving job. Lots of conspiracy out there saying that the USA is being taken down and it's hard to argue with that. It's really hard to care anymore and you can read it on peoples' faces that do the daily grind.

 

^^^ Is that really what it looks like everyday ? wow