The number of truck drivers remains below its peak, as driver pay lags U.S. average wages.
The Driver Shortage
Truck drivers are the basic unit of transportation capacity and the glue that holds supply chains together. No container or straight truck or trailer moves without, at some point, a truck driver. Even so, trucking companies, especially truckload carriers, often have great difficulty finding, hiring and keeping drivers. Nearly every period of economic growth is accompanied by a driver "shortage," including the recovery that began in 2009.
Is today’s shortage truly a demographic lack of available qualified drivers, or is it a market shortage created by comparatively low pay and unsatisfactory working conditions? How will federal regulations governing licensing, medical testing, safety enforcement and how long drivers may work affect demand and supply? Unless trucking companies, logistics providers and shippers work together to finally resolve trucking’s “driver problem,” transportation and logistics costs will rise substantially, and supply chains will be put at risk.
Read more:
10 Reasons for Driver Turnover and What Carriers Can Do About It
Press Releases
Special Coverage
10 Feb 2014
The JOC For-Hire Trucking Employment Index climbed to 96.1 in January from a revised reading of 95.9 in December and November, as trucking companies surveyed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics hired about 3,200 workers.
29 Jan 2014
Shippers and trucking companies need to clearly spell out detention policies and penalties in contracts and tariffs if they want to avoid federal regulation, a transportation attorney warns.
15 Jan 2014
Shippers that detain drivers at loading or unloading docks or terminals could become targets of federal truck safety regulators.
12 Dec 2013
The rate at which truck drivers must be replaced fell to 97 percent in the third quarter, a slight improvement that signals high operating and labor costs for the nation's largest truckload carriers.
26 Nov 2013
Flagship Logistics Group is looking for a few good people to staff its new customer contact center in Indianapolis: veter
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YRC Worldwide’s new CEO James Welch details the progress of the turnaround efforts for the $5 billion trucking operator.
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