What To Do About The Driver Shortage?

Any thoughts on these? All opinions welcome! Keep ‘em coming!

The cool kids (and DoL analysts) call it, "churn". As a boy I was taught to take care of what I had because toys wouldn't be replaced if I tore them up. It seems trucking companies never learned that lesson and expect a never ending supply of replacements to replace the driver who quit.

In the words of Pete Buttigieg:

We are glad that people are joining the industry -- we just need to improve conditions and raise wages so they stay. Until then, we are dealing with a bucket so leaky that simply turning up the faucet cannot solve the problem.

American Trucking Associations has estimated the industry’s workforce is short about 80,000 commercial drivers.

The DOT estimates 300,000 drivers throughout the trucking industry depart the sector each year.

1) Hometime and flexible scheduling. Again, no new thinking or solutions from the trucking companies. If your schedule doesn't match theirs, even for a few days the answer is clean out your truck, you're done.

2) If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The same could be said about trucking companies and bonuses. Fix the job so it's more attractive to drivers so we can attract more drivers and keep the ones we have? Why do that when we can just offer a BONUS! The bigger the bonus a company offers the bigger the red flag I see.

3) Recruiters are part of the problem, but it's really the trucking companies who try to setup the hiring process like buying a used car. They think they're going to con you into taking a job you don't want if they just leave out all the details. Ads don't even list the company that's hiring, or worse, list a fake name. (ie. You apply with 4th Day Trucking and find out the actual employer is CR England). In many cases you don't even get a chance to ask questions about a job. Your only option is to fill out an application BEFORE you can ask questions to find out if it's a job you want. Try doing a search on Indeed for, "touch freight" tell me how many returns you get.

@Pacific Pearl, we may live in different worlds, but my experience is almost opposite to what you say. 1) Buttigiege is already a big problem for transport industry - most truck drivers would be a better fit for his position. 2) I am a company driver, and I set my home time myself. If I need a week or two off, all I need to do is tell my boss. 3) It is hard to make my job more attractive - there is nothing to fix, so it is attractive already. 4) I dealt with recruiters at Roehl and Western Express, both times our communication was very transparent, nobody lied to me and I got everything I was promised. I am not saying that all companies are as good as mine, but I hope my experience proves that they are at least not as bad as you say.

If there is a driver shortage, someone should send the memo to the recruiters. I sent in 4 applications over the weekend and haven’t heard back from anyone. Maybe they saw that my birth date was in 1952 and thought it was a practical joke.

If there is a driver shortage, someone should send the memo to the recruiters. I sent in 4 applications over the weekend and haven’t heard back from anyone. Maybe they saw that my birth date was in 1952 and thought it was a practical joke.

If you are interested in this place, text me and I'll get you the recruiter's number that I was assigned.

The bigger the bonus a company offers the bigger the red flag I see.

I completely agree. In my area Papa John's and McLane have been offering $20,000 sign on bonuses. They're not offering that out of the kindness of their heart. They're offering it because that's the only way to get drivers so their stores can get their product and remain open. Both of those companies require teaming and hand unload with 2 wheelers. Both advertise $100k a year. Atleast with McLane they say most routes are between 18 and 24 hours, but I've always seen 2 guys unloading. I don't want to say they're falsifying logs but I wouldn't be surprised if one driver is logging sleeper/off duty while outside helping to unload.

The thing is a majority of drivers don't want to unload their own trailer. It becomes even less when they're not paying drastically more than other jobs that don't require the physical labor. Most LTL companies you're able to make that type of money after a couple year then you have it made. I made just over what papa John's is advertising my first full year. Add in a 4 day work week with the OPTION to take extra days if you have the hours/want to, quarterly bonuses and knowing immediately when you request time off whether it's approved it makes it a very attractive position for many. While everyone else is claiming driver shortage we've had the complete opposite experience. In the past year we've grown from roughly 140 drivers to 190. From what I heard we have a large stack of applications to hire an additional 20 but they're waiting a couple months until we're closer to our freezer expansion opening. Driver turnover really only appears to be a problem in OTR and food/beverage delivery. You don't hear about these types of problems in many local jobs, especially LTL. They're different business models but maybe there's something to be learned about why the turnover is so different. Where I'm at we've lost maybe a dozen guys or so of the 140. 3 have passed away, 1 has been fighting pancreatic cancer, 3 retired and the rest for various reasons like running overnights. One was also fired for a drug test that he claims was due to CBD oil.

You don't hear about these types of problems in many local jobs, especially LTL

Seniority is a big reason for that, having to start over at the bottom and spend possibly years on the crappy runs makes a lot of people hesitant to leave. We have one guy who lives 5 minutes from on of our terminals but he drives almost an hour to my terminal just because if he transfers he'd go from 18th of 65 to last in seniority.

We have gone from 38 linehaul drivers to 65 plus they've added 5 P&D , I was told they want to hire even more linehaul. I see them training people so we are getting some new hires.

If there is a driver shortage, someone should send the memo to the recruiters. I sent in 4 applications over the weekend and haven’t heard back from anyone. Maybe they saw that my birth date was in 1952 and thought it was a practical joke.

Tried any of MY suggestions, too?!?!? Often the places we are familiar with, prefer MATURE drivers, Bruce.

~ Anne & Tom ~

Moving toward getting back into driving, I've been following this thread with considerable interest, and doing some reading from various sources. I came across an article from a couple years back on the Freightwaves website, with this statistic in the article:

Based on periodic surveys of TCA Profitability Program participants, trucking industry turnover is heavily weighted to drivers with limited tenure (voluntary and involuntary terminations), which is drivers with less than 180 days since original hire date. For those carriers that participated in the surveys, short-term turnover accounted for over 85% of total annualized turnover. This reinforces the hypothesis that the root cause of the industry’s retention issue is the difficulty acclimating to working conditions that exist for drivers, especially long haul drivers. Further, the longer the average length of haul, the higher the turnover.

If there's any accuracy to this view, are there steps that the industry could take to better educate prospective drivers?

Here's a link to the article: Freightways article on driver turnover

If there is a driver shortage, someone should send the memo to the recruiters. I sent in 4 applications over the weekend and haven’t heard back from anyone. Maybe they saw that my birth date was in 1952 and thought it was a practical joke.

Tried any of MY suggestions, too?!?!? Often the places we are familiar with, prefer MATURE drivers, Bruce.

~ Anne & Tom ~

Anne, yes I’ve been checking out the ones you suggested. Thanks!

If there's any accuracy to this view, are there steps that the industry could take to better educate prospective drivers?

Aside from offering ride a longs probably not. Even before you don't factor in the logistics of picking up/dropping off the rider that isn't even feasible because most companies have trouble getting enough trainers and now you're going to have the few drivers willing to share their living space occupied by someone who may want to drive. Every day brings something new and you'd still experience things when you're actually doing the job. We see it quite often where someone will spend 3 weeks with a trainer and is clueless about certain things because the situation didn't arise. A few years ago there were multiple posts about how the company (wilson?) recruiter would contact the prospective drivers spouse prior to offering a job to ensure they understood what their spouse will be dealing with. Many of the responses were that it was unreasonable and that implying you need permission from your spouse.

When most people begin thinking of driving they think of the freedom of driving, being able to be a "tourist", and making a substantial amount of income more. What most don't consider is missed holidays, birthdays, anniversaries etc. Just because you get your hometime approved doesn't mean you'll make it home on time. It's possible a truck breakdown or interstate gets shut down and now you're a day late. They don't think of how the drivers flip flops their schedule to make appointment times or go through the big cities at 2am instead of morning rush hour. New drivers get into the hourly pay mindset they've always been paid by and realize that the $800 a week for 70 hours of work (plus all the time spent in dock) they're earning to be gone 3 weeks at a time isn't worth it. They see other companies offering a few CPM more and jump ship or just decide go back home and be in their bed every night and work in a job outside of industry. I'd guess that a majority of the companies in that study are the companies that pay less than others because they take chances other carriers won't like C.R. England, Western Express and Trans Am. Not having a restroom available at all times, disrespect by some shippers/receivers, delays at certain places that last several hours or even days and lack of affordable healthy food options in truck stops doesn't help either.