JUL 5 You’ve likely noticed that delivery of many consumer and business materials is taking much longer than in past years. That new refrigerator, that updated computer monitor, those special-order shoes — whether for home or business use, raw materials or finished products, what might once have arrived in days is now often taking weeks, […]
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JUL 5
You’ve likely noticed that delivery of many consumer and business materials is taking much longer than in past years. That new refrigerator, that updated computer monitor, those special-order shoes — whether for home or business use, raw materials or finished products, what might once have arrived in days is now often taking weeks, perhaps even months.
These delays are no surprise to leaders of local trucking companies, and the slowdowns may be the new normal for the foreseeable future due to a variety of complicating factors, from driver shortages to tie-ups at shipping ports and explosive growth in demand linked to the post-pandemic economic recovery.
“From the positive side, we’ve got tons of freight, lots of opportunities out there,” said Michael Gerdin, chairman and CEO of Heartland Express, headquartered in North Liberty. “Our drivers are driving all they can every day, and we’re moving freight as quickly and as safely possible, so that’s a really good thing. The main (negative) is the lack of drivers and the aging of the driver population.”
Riley Larson, general manager of Cedar Rapids-based JMS Transportation, concurred that a shortage of available drivers is the industry’s biggest challenge.
“It’s been getting worse for a few years now,” Mr. Larson said. “That’s no secret to anybody. It’s the number one issue in the industry right now. A lot of the drivers are retiring, and not a lot of young people are getting into (trucking). It’s worrisome when you think about it, not even now but down the road, with more of those older drivers starting to retire and not a lot of young people coming in, it begs the question — what’s the endpoint here?”
An aging workforce
The median age of over-the-road truckers in the United States has been on the rise for several years, currently standing at age 46 as compared to an average age of 42 for all occupations, according to a report from alltrucking.com. The median age is 35 for drivers in training. And the contrast is most striking for private fleet drivers, who are a median 57 years old.
In addition, it can be challenging to keep drivers working for a specific company even after they’re hired, Mr. Larson said, so service loyalty and longevity are lessening.
“Driver retention is becoming a bigger issue for a lot of us,” he said. “Right now, there is such a shortage of drivers, and companies need drivers any way they can get them. Drivers are recognizing that, so they’re more apt to leave a company quicker than they would normally because they know that there (are) 10 other companies looking to hire them if they leave. Before, it was more of a job security thing, where they would have been probably more inclined to stay. Now they’re leaving because they know that there are other companies out there that need them just as badly, and fleets are trying to get creative with ways to keep drivers.”
The driver shortage was only exacerbated by COVID-19, Mr. Gerdin noted. “We had a lot of drivers coming off the road,” he said. “And the (driving) schools have been shut down pretty much for the whole year last year. They’re starting to open now to bring some new (drivers) into the industry, but we’re losing way more than are coming in.”
No shortage of demand
On the flip side, there’s plenty of demand for trucking services, both locally and nationally, as the economic recovery continues to pick up steam.
“We have the highest demand of all time,” Mr. Gerdin said of Heartland, which operates a fleet of about 3,000 trucks in 25 states. “Every day since last July, it’s all day, every day, non-stop stuff to move. The consumer is just buying and buying and buying, and it’s just all we can do, every single day.”
Mr. Larson took it a step further for JMS, which has about 150 trucks and specializes in regional, long-haul trucking, mostly scrap paper used to make boxes and other packaging materials.
In many cases, due to equipment supply shortages, trucking companies are ordering new vehicles well before they anticipate needing them, Mr. Larson said.
“Fleets are trying to be proactive,” he said. “They might not feel they need any new trucks, but they’re going to get those orders in because it might be six months to over a year before that truck gets to them, and by that time, they’re probably going to need it. They’re just kind of riding it out, hoping things will balance out and get better sooner rather than later.”
Search for solutions
While the issues facing the trucking industry have intensified in recent years, they aren’t new, so several solutions have been pursued, with mixed results.
“We’ve tried everything we could think of,” Mr. Gerdin said. “It’s the million-dollar question — how we get more drivers out driving? But the fact is, not many people want to sit behind the wheel and drive 2,500 miles a week. It’s a tough job. The younger generation is not really interested in driving trucks. They’re more interested in their laptops, sitting in an office doing their work. We’re into the $80,000 (range) for good hard-working drivers, and it still doesn’t seem to attract the numbers that we need. You can drive 10 hours a day, so it’s more than a 40-hour workweek. That’s another detractor. With as much freight as there is out there right now, you’re going to be driving a lot. And that doesn’t interest a lot of people.”
Awareness of that pay potential might help in the long run, Mr. Larson said.
“Pay is one of the things that could actually get a lot of these young people into the profession, if they knew how much a truck driver can make right out of the gate,” he said. “Truck drivers aren’t seen the way they used to be seen, as the guardians of the road. The view of truck drivers has been spun in a negative way, which affects a lot of young people wanting to get into it.”
NEWSMAKERS UPDATE
Driver shortage worsens with supply chain issues
“The driver shortage is still escalating,” Brenda Neville, president and CEO of the Iowa Motor Truck Association (IMTA), said in a November interview with the CBJ. “I know for a fact we haven’t seen any improvement. If anything, with all the supply chain disruptions, some people believe it’s even gotten worse.”
Chief Economist Bob Costello of the American Trucking Association (ATA) said the current driver shortage has risen to 80,000 nationwide — an all-time high for the industry.
“Since we last released an estimate of the shortage, there has been tremendous pressure on the driver pool,” Mr. Costello said. “Increased demand for freight, pandemic-related challenges from early retirements, closed driving schools and DMVs, and other pressures are really pushing up demand for drivers, and subsequently the shortage.”
Based on driver demographic trends, including gender and age, as well as expected freight growth, the shortage could surpass 160,000 in 2030, Mr. Costello said.
“The thing to remember with the supply chain disruptions,” Ms. Neville added, “is that it’s not just the truck drivers. There are a lot of entities involved in the whole supply chain network. We’ve had a lot of people spending and buying, and we’re behind on production. Then the driver shortage becomes further illuminated.”
Initiatives are under way to address the driver shortage, Ms. Neville said. “We’ve always been aggressive in trying to get people attracted to our industry,” she said. “But I think we’re become even better at telling the story about the money you can make, the benefits that prevail. And we’re seeing a lot of efforts being targeted to some of the demographics we didn’t traditionally go after. I know some companies are doing special campaigns to attract women and other minorities.”
