Truck drivers (and the need to hire more) have been in the spotlight recently. Supply chain disruptions highlighted just how much American consumers don’t like to wait. In response, a new Trucking Action Plan by the White House was designed to alleviate the pain.
And, like clockwork, many trucking industry analysts and companies have again discussed the “truck driver shortage.”
But one major player in the trucking industry is saying that no such shortage exists.
OOIDA: “There’s no shortage.”
Lewie Pugh is the Executive Vice President for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which represents about 150,000 owner-ops. And while the organization does not rep company drivers, they are involved in lobbying and other activism related to the entire trucking industry.
According to Pugh, the problem is not a truck driver shortage. The problem is driver retention.
In no uncertain terms, Pugh says, “There’s no shortage. We just need to keep ‘em. The same people that say they need 80,000 drivers also report they have a 94 percent turnover rate in our industry.”
Pugh also cites the 400,000+ new Commercial Driver’s Licenses issued each year and the extremely high rates of drivers who quit after one year.
Pugh Is Correct About Working Conditions
Driving a truck for the right company can be lucrative and rewarding, but for far too many truck drivers, they are not being properly compensated for their time.
Truck drivers are only paid while on the road in what is commonly called “Cents Per Mile” or CPM. This method of payment means that periods of unpaid detention time at shippers/receivers drastically harms a driver’s ability to earn. If a receiver isn’t ready at the dock to unload a truck, a driver can sit around and wait and lose more than half a day’s earnings.
Additionally, becoming a truck driver is more than just a job. It’s a lifestyle.
Drivers sleep in their cabs and live on the road. Drivers must eat at truck stops and find exercise when they can. Many suffer from issues like sleep apnea or obesity as a result. They are responsible for the entirety of the US economy, yet are not treated as the critical workers that they are.
Pugh’s Three Solutions
Pugh mentions three key points to help companies retain drivers. These three points would not only keep drivers at a specific company, but they’d also keep drivers in the industry.
The first, obviously, is better pay. In any alleged “labor shortage,” companies can either attract people to jobs with better pay or they can try to expand the labor pool. We’ve seen companies try to do the latter by lobbying to reduce the interstate commercial driving age from 21 to 18 (a move the OOIDA opposes) and to make it easier for foreign workers to drive.
The second point of Pugh’s sounds simple, but it isn’t: Take care of people. As mentioned, driving is a lifestyle. By providing more home time and accommodating drivers, we are less likely to see a mass exodus after the drivers’ first year of living this life.
The third point is to increase manufacturing in America, which could provide drivers with better-paying jobs and a better network for the logistics industry.