The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More.

[cpzilliacus]

The Upshot in the N.Y. Times: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More.

Swift Transportation's 20,000 workers haul goods in almost 14,000 big-rig trucks that travel the interstates and back roads of the United States every day. The company's performance is closely tied to the nation's economy, which has been looking increasingly sunny lately.

So it was surprising last month when Swift's stock plummeted nearly 18 percent in a single day. The tumble came for an odd reason. It wasn't because there was too little business – but rather, too much.

"We were constrained by the challenging driver market,"  the company said in its quarterly earnings announcement. "Our driver turnover and unseated truck count were higher than anticipated."

In other words, Swift had plenty of customers wanting to ship goods. But in a time of elevated unemployment, it somehow couldn't find enough drivers to take those goods from Point A to Point B. How is that possible? The reasons for that conundrum tell us a great deal about what has been ailing American workers and why a full-throated economic recovery has been so slow in coming.

Consider this: The American Trucking Associations has estimated that there was a shortage of 30,000 qualified drivers earlier this year, a number on track to rise to 200,000 over the next decade. Trucking companies are turning down business for want of workers.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

It not only needs to pay more, but it also needs to pay differently, and stop making drivers put up with so much BS. (Governors, forced fueling, forced routing, driver-facing cameras, forced dispatch, etc.)

[SteveG1988]

Basically, treat the drivers like adults, imagine this micromanagement in an office.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

Companies such as mine that have a lot of Just-In-Time freight, which is typically short (usually 600 miles or less) and tight, need to pay percentage rather than per-mile.  JIT freight pays very high rates, and the drivers should see some of that - in this case, the classical per-mile system is essentially a scam.  Companies that deal with mostly conventional (long-haul) freight are fine paying per-mile.