Shortages and capacity trouble in the bulk industry.

At my former job I got real close to some of the sales people and a few of the managers. Like we were friend's outside of work. When I first started in trucking I drove a van and all I heard was price, price, price. But on the Bulk side all I hear from these people is capacity, capacity, capacity. Meaning we don't have enough drivers to move the freight. From what I'm hearing from my people customers are needing more trucks and they are becoming less concerned about price. I think the future is bright for us for a few reasons. Whether you believe there is a driver shortage or not, the stats don't lie, there will be in 10 years. Chemicals are expensive and therefore customers have to monitor there use closely and you can't just store extra product in the back. This means that Intermodal will never be as big in bulk as other kinds of freight which of course means more drivers needed. My question for those of you who have access to your sales team is what are you hearing? What are your thoughts on the future and when will we hit that tipping point where pay increases sharply? Just thought a general discussion about where us tanker yankers are heading would be fun and informative. I would like this to be constructive and not a gripe fest but I know as soon as I hit post I lose all control. Some drivers on here have some inside information and a comparison would be good.

Chinatown would really like to hear your thoughts on this from a historical perspective as you have tons of experience in trucking. Like when was the last time capacity became king?

 

One a related note, at my new company I went to lunch with a salesman and again the talk was capacity. In fact I'm hired on to a special fleet within the company that is designed to increase flexibility, it's kinda complicated and I'll explain later in another thread once I have some solid experience. Schneider Bulk just increased pay .04 cpm and I got the best offer of my life with Trimac so it seems, at least initially, that pay is going up.

 

If the starting pay was 80k with a top out of say 100k, I just can't believe that the job wouldn't attract some great people. Good people do research before jumping into things. I mean the guys that come on here every week complaining about CR England, or Werner etc are the people that will never make it regardless. Not to be mean but those guys are usually not the best and brightest. They are also the people that form the massive line heading for the exit. But did you guys ever think of the ones we hear nothing about? I'm talking about people who researched and said no thanks. 80k starting and I think we start meeting more and more of those guys.

I've been on this forum long enough to get a reasonable idea of who is who on here. I'm sure the rest of you guys have an idea of who are the professionals and who are the complainers. We need to attract and keep the professionals. It's more than pay that keeps a lot of people out but OTR is what it is. There is not much to change that.