Truck Driver Shortage

Actually GARookie, there is a brand new article on this very same topic right here on the front page of this website. Its quoted for saying that this quarter the turnover rate for the industry was at 104%!!!

This is due to mainly two things.... Home time for newbies and recruiters lying to newbies!

Not to mention that most new drivers go straight to the mega-carriers because they do not know any better and this greatly decreases their chances of success right off the bat!

 

One thing that is not reported is "churn." The term was coined some years ago to differentiate the turnover going from one carrier to another, but staying in the industry. Actual turnover where drivers are leaving the industry are not really known or reported from anything that I have read. A few years ago turnover rate was about 136%. Some of the turnover may have to do with different carriers, but much of it comes from drivers, themselves. We have a society that wants everything right now. People come into this business and want to start at $50,000 right out of driving school. That doesn't happen. Whether it is driving a truck or working in a factory or flipping burgers, everyone starts at the bottom. The main difference between trucking and some of the other career choices that I mentioned is that you can earn $30,000-35,000 your first year and with the others that I mentioned, you will do good to make $20,000 your first year. Some may complain about the pay, but there are opportunities for those who are willing to stick it out and learn. You don't need to stay at that $35,000. With factory work or fast food, you will nearly always start at the bottom, no matter where you work. With trucking, your experience will help you to move to another carrier and start at a higher wage in most cases. A driver with 5 years experience, regardless of where that experience was earned, can expect to start at a higher rate than someone with a year or less experience.

If you currently drive for a living, you know that there is no real driver shortage, just from all the traffic and lack of parking at many truck stops. With current freight rates and lack of an abundance of freight to haul, we don't need a lot of extra drivers. More drivers would only drive down rates further.

 

there is a surplus of drivers currently, there arent as many advertisements as in other times, basically we are in a recession and there are people entering the field because they cant find other work on top of all of the existing drivers. most companies looking for drivers are going to be the bottom feeders who a circling for fresh meat to grind up, pay? .30 per mile. as said previously when there is a shortage you will see rates go up and pay go up,it just isnt happening.

 

What trucking companies pays the LEAST amount of money, for both a solo or a team driver, primarily in reference to how many cents per mile?

 

The only shortage that exists are the experienced drivers who are not willing to work for the sub-standard wages, benefits, working conditions and home time that most trucking companies offer.

There is no shortage of new drivers for these companies though. Recruiters lie, adds lie and yet they still come in droves. That's exactly how they stay in business and will continue to do so.

It is very easy to avoid a junk company. Here is my tip. Go to any truckstop and find the magazine rack that has advertising magazines (pamphlets) for trucking jobs. That's the problem, they are just jobs. Do yourself a favor and avoid any company that has to advertise in those magazines. They advertise for a reason and none of those reasons benefit the driver.

Sorry to say that with all the information on this forum, some people will end up learning the hard way.

 

Well that would be interesting, but not going to happen anytime soon. Transportation workers are exempt from Fair Labor laws. Just like agriculture workers are. Been that way since Fair Labor law put in place.

And that might only put a dent in the so-called "driver shortage" problem. It is not always about money. Like sitting for 30 hrs at a truckstop waiting on the next load. that is not Line 4, yet it carves into the take home pay. There are a lot of factors that make a good place to work, and money is only part of the equation. Customer base and how they treat the drivers, condition and spec's of equipment that the driver has to deal with, a reasonable, quality home time on a consistent basis, overall attitude of the office personnel and how they treat the driver, etc.

I would take all this to a whole new level. Instead of a per mile, per hour, or some other traditional way of doing things, one way that might be a better solution would be driving as a salaried position. You are going to get a certain amount per week, month, quarter, year no matter what. They could only work you up to the HOS regulations, so it isn't like they could over work you. A driver could determine if the salaried pay is substantial enough to justify taking the position. And it would add a whole new dimension to how companies advertise their available jobs. It wouldn't matter if you got delayed at the customer, sat waiting for the next load, or any number of other things that mess us up now. So what if you couldn't get a reset on your HOS. And experienced drivers could better negotiate a salaried pay package instead of this "one size fits all" per mile thing that has gone on for decades.

But this is all a pipe dream at best. Carriers are not going to go to something like this anytime soon.

 

If the wages were high enough to make all rest of the B.S. of working away from home, dealing with law enforcement, bad dispatchers, four wheelers, and pain in the rear shippers/ receivers. There would be a waiting list of people waiting to drive. I am convinced it's all about the money. I read a story a while back that said the average truck driver only makes twice the average food service worker. It was once 4 times the average food service worker. I also agree with referring to the "Driver Shortage" as "Propaganda."

 

"It's an adventure that U.S. Xpress Enterprises in Chattanooga and other trucking companies hope more displaced workers are willing to make to meet a growing shortage of truck drivers in America. The Chattanooga-based trucking company hires more than 7,000 new drivers a year."

Really? Of those 7,000 drivers a year they hire, how many of them are replacing the ones that quit? You know, "Driver Turnover." Gotta love the spin the media puts on these articles. I just wish a company would break down those 7,000 jobs and tell the viewers what the reasons where those drivers left their employment.

 

The shortage is in drivers who want to work and not sit on their lazy butts collecting unemployment, not in drivers themselves. We went through 8 drivers in 6 before we got 2 who have stuck around. The rest quit becuase they didn't want to work that hard.

 

OOIDA put a article out by the ATA that the driver turnover for OTR carriers at 104% annually. And that right now there is a driver shortage on the OTR truckload side by more than 25,000 drivers. That number is expected to more than double within a decade. So they just keep pumpin students out at the Tampax factory, as soon as one is used up just shove another one in the hole to stop the bleeding for a minute.
I was a trainer at a trucking school for a stretch and we saw their stat sheets for recruiting purposes and roughly 50% of all students that went through the school would not be involved in trucking 1 year from the time they got their CDL. And 75% percent before 2 years was up. The students get into this life of living on the road out of desperation usually and have little knowledge of trucking beforehand, being gone, eating junk, taking a wad of BS from all these starter companies that pay low and treat you like dirt. If you can get past the first couple of years of weeding thru the bad companies then you might hope to line up a decent job or atleast start to get treated better by the starter company since you have stuck it out. But until the root problem gets addressed of how to make this line of work more attractive to average working people with decent benis and pay then people will come in for 6 months to a year then get discouraged and go back to getting treated like dirt at their fast food job and atleast be home everyday.