Job Security. Drivers Wanted, Shortage in Trucking Industry
Information obtained from: logisticstoday
For those who think the shortage of truck drivers is overstated, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) has a new study, based on statistical analysis, that indicates the U.S. is currently short of 20,000 drivers. If current trends continue, the same report predicts that the shortage of long-haul, heavy-duty truck drivers in the U.S. could reach as high as 111,000 by the year 2014.
Of the 3.4 million truck drivers on the road, 1.3 million are long-haul truckers, the driver segment said to be the most severely impacted by the shortage. Although the ATA says the current driver shortage is 20,000 drivers, it seems even larger to the industry because of a high degree of driver "churning," or moving from carrier to carrier. Large truckload carriers reported an average annual turnover of 121% last year.
If current demographic trends continue, the supply of new long-haul heavy truck drivers will grow at an annual rate of just 1.6% in the next decade. But Global Insight, the economic consulting firm that conducted the study for ATA, predicts over the next 10 years, economic growth will generate a need for a 2.2% average annual increase in long-haul heavy truck drivers, or 320,000 jobs overall.
Another 219,000 must be found to replace drivers 55 and older who will retire in the next decade, putting total expansion and replacement hiring needs at 539,000 or an average of 54,000 new drivers per year for the next decade.
Scores of drivers exited the long-haul trucking industry after average weekly earnings fell 9% below average construction earnings in the 2000 recession. Driver wages have since failed to regain pre-2000 levels when they averaged 6% to 7% higher than construction wages. Long-haul drivers also cited extended periods away from home and unpredictable schedules as reasons for transitioning to other occupations.
At the same time, the industry is challenged with finding qualified drivers. Many trucking companies reject a high percentage of driver applicants because they lack qualifications. Those challenges escalated in recent years as the industry tightened its security and safety measures.
The driver shortage comes as the trucking industry is hauling more freight than ever. Total annual tonnage hauled by truck is expected to increase to 13 billion tons by 2016 from 9.8 billion tons in 2004.
"It's a favorable supply-demand market for us," Graves says. "But the ability to add truck capacity is based on the market's ability to find drivers. A tight driver market will keep capacity tight."
Finding drivers will grow more difficult in coming years, the ATA predicts, as adverse demographic trends limit the size of the pool of workers that traditionally fill truck driving jobs. For example, one-fifth of all heavy-duty truck drivers are aged 55 or older. Replacements must be found for nearly all of these because only a small fraction of heavy-duty truck drivers work past age 65. The ability to replace these drivers will be further constrained by insufficient growth of new entrants into the labor force, which is expected to decelerate after 2007 from a 1.4% annual pace to only 0.5% growth in 2014. More importantly, the number of men aged 35 to 54, which make up the primary driver demographic, will be flat or declining over the next 10 years.
To increase the nation's driver pool, the industry increasingly will need to draw upon a larger percentage of women and minorities. Women currently represent 5% of truck drivers. African Americans represent 11.7% of long-haul drivers and Hispanics total 9.7% of the long-haul driving sector.
If the trucking industry is to attract a higher share of drivers to match its growth projections for the next 10 years, it will be necessary for earnings to, at a minimum, return to the wage position that prevailed in the 1990s. At present, weekly earnings in long-distance trucking are 1.5% below the average in construction. The industry also will have to address the quality of life issues, including driver home time and schedule flexibility.
We also found another article from the Truckers Report Web site with the following content:
link to article: thetruckersreport
Truck Driver Shortage? Small Wonder...
Friday, May 27, 2005 Posted: 9:27 AM CST (1527 GMT)
According to the American Trucking Association's new report, US Truck Driver Shortage: Analysis and Forecasts, The long-haul segment of the trucking industry has a national shortage of 20,000 drivers. It predicts the shortage will increase to 111,000 by the year 2014 given the current demographic trends.
Making things even worse is the HIGH turnover rate reported by large carriers to be as high as 121%. There are currently 1.3 million long-haul truckers out of 3.4 million truckers nationwide. The industry as a whole has experienced a shortage of 195,000 in the first quarter of 2005.
“The driver market is the tightest it has been in 20 years,” ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said. “It’s a major limitation to the amount of freight that motor carriers can haul. It’s critical that we find ways to tap a new labor pool, increase wages and recruit new people into the industry that keeps our national economy moving.”
What is dumbfounding to The Trucker's Report is the fact that these trucking companies are surprised by this trend! Trucking companies will FLOOD the airways, newspapers, billboards, and all other known media in an effort to attract truckers while at the same time changing NOTHING! These companies will pay, on average, over $3,000 per driver to hire that driver. Turnover? IF the drivers that just left the company were indeed paid for their time and generally taken care of better then they would not have to fork out more $$$ to get more drivers! This is truly a maddening aspect of the trucking industry.
With the amount of trucks I see on the road today I shiver at the thought of 100's of thousands more on our highways. I believe there is NO such thing as a shortage of drivers BUT rather a shortage of common sense and good business practices, period. The trucking industry is the most cold-hearted, cut-throated, and non-caring business I have ever witnessed. It truly is no wonder that there is 121% turnover in this industry considering how companies treat the drivers they DO have.
The cure? The cure is NOT to flood the airways with your stupid ads, hire non-English speaking drivers, do more studies, rent more billboards, pay every joker a $500 fee for finding you a driver, or any of your other idiotic methods for "curing" this so-called "driver shortage". It is to KEEP the drivers you already have, pay them for their endless time in parking lots, pay them a decent rate that's higher than what they were paid in the 1980's, and give them more time home than 1 day every 7.
Why don't you trucking companies use your resources for keeping your drivers instead of trying to get them? IF you did this then you wouldn't have to look for them, they would beat the door down trying to get in! Use your brains! It makes NO sense whatsoever to endure a 121% turnover rate, think it has nothing to do with your goofy practices, and just run about trying to find more.
Of course we ALL know that the quality of drivers has dropped dramatically in the past few years with good reason. NOBODY wants to put up with what drivers have to put up with on the road AND deal with a bad trucking company at the same time. So, all our good drivers (the ones with brains, common sense, decency, common courtesy, etc) ARE leaving in an effort to save some of their sanity. DUH!
Comment: As stated on our site this to me means job security. Once the owners get their act in order if ever this profession has a very promising outlook.
For those who think the shortage of truck drivers is overstated, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) has a new study, based on statistical analysis, that indicates the U.S. is currently short of 20,000 drivers. If current trends continue, the same report predicts that the shortage of long-haul, heavy-duty truck drivers in the U.S. could reach as high as 111,000 by the year 2014.
Of the 3.4 million truck drivers on the road, 1.3 million are long-haul truckers, the driver segment said to be the most severely impacted by the shortage. Although the ATA says the current driver shortage is 20,000 drivers, it seems even larger to the industry because of a high degree of driver "churning," or moving from carrier to carrier. Large truckload carriers reported an average annual turnover of 121% last year.
If current demographic trends continue, the supply of new long-haul heavy truck drivers will grow at an annual rate of just 1.6% in the next decade. But Global Insight, the economic consulting firm that conducted the study for ATA, predicts over the next 10 years, economic growth will generate a need for a 2.2% average annual increase in long-haul heavy truck drivers, or 320,000 jobs overall.
Another 219,000 must be found to replace drivers 55 and older who will retire in the next decade, putting total expansion and replacement hiring needs at 539,000 or an average of 54,000 new drivers per year for the next decade.
Scores of drivers exited the long-haul trucking industry after average weekly earnings fell 9% below average construction earnings in the 2000 recession. Driver wages have since failed to regain pre-2000 levels when they averaged 6% to 7% higher than construction wages. Long-haul drivers also cited extended periods away from home and unpredictable schedules as reasons for transitioning to other occupations.
At the same time, the industry is challenged with finding qualified drivers. Many trucking companies reject a high percentage of driver applicants because they lack qualifications. Those challenges escalated in recent years as the industry tightened its security and safety measures.
The driver shortage comes as the trucking industry is hauling more freight than ever. Total annual tonnage hauled by truck is expected to increase to 13 billion tons by 2016 from 9.8 billion tons in 2004.
"It's a favorable supply-demand market for us," Graves says. "But the ability to add truck capacity is based on the market's ability to find drivers. A tight driver market will keep capacity tight."
Finding drivers will grow more difficult in coming years, the ATA predicts, as adverse demographic trends limit the size of the pool of workers that traditionally fill truck driving jobs. For example, one-fifth of all heavy-duty truck drivers are aged 55 or older. Replacements must be found for nearly all of these because only a small fraction of heavy-duty truck drivers work past age 65. The ability to replace these drivers will be further constrained by insufficient growth of new entrants into the labor force, which is expected to decelerate after 2007 from a 1.4% annual pace to only 0.5% growth in 2014. More importantly, the number of men aged 35 to 54, which make up the primary driver demographic, will be flat or declining over the next 10 years.
To increase the nation's driver pool, the industry increasingly will need to draw upon a larger percentage of women and minorities. Women currently represent 5% of truck drivers. African Americans represent 11.7% of long-haul drivers and Hispanics total 9.7% of the long-haul driving sector.
If the trucking industry is to attract a higher share of drivers to match its growth projections for the next 10 years, it will be necessary for earnings to, at a minimum, return to the wage position that prevailed in the 1990s. At present, weekly earnings in long-distance trucking are 1.5% below the average in construction. The industry also will have to address the quality of life issues, including driver home time and schedule flexibility.
We also found another article from the Truckers Report Web site with the following content:
link to article: thetruckersreport
Truck Driver Shortage? Small Wonder...
Friday, May 27, 2005 Posted: 9:27 AM CST (1527 GMT)
According to the American Trucking Association's new report, US Truck Driver Shortage: Analysis and Forecasts, The long-haul segment of the trucking industry has a national shortage of 20,000 drivers. It predicts the shortage will increase to 111,000 by the year 2014 given the current demographic trends.
Making things even worse is the HIGH turnover rate reported by large carriers to be as high as 121%. There are currently 1.3 million long-haul truckers out of 3.4 million truckers nationwide. The industry as a whole has experienced a shortage of 195,000 in the first quarter of 2005.
“The driver market is the tightest it has been in 20 years,” ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said. “It’s a major limitation to the amount of freight that motor carriers can haul. It’s critical that we find ways to tap a new labor pool, increase wages and recruit new people into the industry that keeps our national economy moving.”
What is dumbfounding to The Trucker's Report is the fact that these trucking companies are surprised by this trend! Trucking companies will FLOOD the airways, newspapers, billboards, and all other known media in an effort to attract truckers while at the same time changing NOTHING! These companies will pay, on average, over $3,000 per driver to hire that driver. Turnover? IF the drivers that just left the company were indeed paid for their time and generally taken care of better then they would not have to fork out more $$$ to get more drivers! This is truly a maddening aspect of the trucking industry.
With the amount of trucks I see on the road today I shiver at the thought of 100's of thousands more on our highways. I believe there is NO such thing as a shortage of drivers BUT rather a shortage of common sense and good business practices, period. The trucking industry is the most cold-hearted, cut-throated, and non-caring business I have ever witnessed. It truly is no wonder that there is 121% turnover in this industry considering how companies treat the drivers they DO have.
The cure? The cure is NOT to flood the airways with your stupid ads, hire non-English speaking drivers, do more studies, rent more billboards, pay every joker a $500 fee for finding you a driver, or any of your other idiotic methods for "curing" this so-called "driver shortage". It is to KEEP the drivers you already have, pay them for their endless time in parking lots, pay them a decent rate that's higher than what they were paid in the 1980's, and give them more time home than 1 day every 7.
Why don't you trucking companies use your resources for keeping your drivers instead of trying to get them? IF you did this then you wouldn't have to look for them, they would beat the door down trying to get in! Use your brains! It makes NO sense whatsoever to endure a 121% turnover rate, think it has nothing to do with your goofy practices, and just run about trying to find more.
Of course we ALL know that the quality of drivers has dropped dramatically in the past few years with good reason. NOBODY wants to put up with what drivers have to put up with on the road AND deal with a bad trucking company at the same time. So, all our good drivers (the ones with brains, common sense, decency, common courtesy, etc) ARE leaving in an effort to save some of their sanity. DUH!
Comment: As stated on our site this to me means job security. Once the owners get their act in order if ever this profession has a very promising outlook.
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