The shortfalls are pushing up transportation costs and delaying deliveries for retailers and manufacturers already coping with disruptions ahead of the holiday peak.
The American Trucking Associations, one of the largest trade bodies, estimates the industry is some 80,000 drivers short of the workers needed to keep goods moving freely this year—up from an estimated shortage of 61,500 drivers before the pandemic. New trucks, trailers and other equipment are in short supply, further limiting the movement of cargo.
Trucking payrolls have rebounded from early pandemic lows when efforts to stop the spread of Covid-19 shut down much of the economy. The sector added 74,500 jobs between April 2020 and September 2021, according to seasonally-adjusted Labor Department data, though overall employment in trucking remained 1.3% lower than pre-pandemic levels in September 2019.
To help draw more drivers, fleets of all sizes are raising wages and dangling bonuses. The American Trucking Associations is backing proposed legislation to test letting people as young as 18 drive big rigs interstate, a job now limited to drivers 21 and older. Close to a third of drivers now on the road are over age 55, and women make up only 7% of all truckers, the group said. Median annual pay for heavy-truck and tractor-trailer drivers last year was $47,130, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and has increased by about 3% to 4% annually since 2016.
Some operators say the biggest problem isn’t a shortage of drivers, but a lack of efficiency in a model that hasn’t changed much in several decades.
Many drivers are paid by the mile, and typically don’t get paid for the first two hours spent waiting to load or unload cargo. Even after that window, drivers often don’t routinely seek compensation from carriers or freight brokers for that time because they seldom get it, according to a 2020 survey by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. Any pay for time spent waiting is generally less than what drivers would make when their wheels are rolling.
“The economic dysfunction of trucking is there’s no value placed on a driver’s time,” said Todd Spencer, president of the association, which represents drivers that own or operate individual heavy-duty trucks and small truck fleets.
Help Wanted: Truck Drivers to Unclog the Supply ChainYou may also likeUp Next
Now, truckers who used to wait a few hours to pick up or unload cargo sometimes sit as long as 12 hours, said Daniel Faircloth, chief executive of Surge Transportation Group LLC, a Dallas-based carrier with 75 trucks.
To address that, Mr. Faircloth raised the rates he charges his shipping customers and offered to pay his drivers a straight salary of $1,650 a week. “Inefficiency in the entire industry gets under drivers’ skin,” he said. “You help us get more efficient, and that helps drive rates down.”
In September, the average cost to hire a big rig on the “spot market,” where companies book last-minute transportation, was $2.49 per mile excluding fuel surcharges, up 14% from the same month in 2020, according to online freight marketplace DAT Solutions LLC. It’s the highest monthly average since DAT began reporting that data in 2010. The average price for the long-term contract rates shippers negotiate with trucking companies jumped 23%, to $2.49 per mile, also a new high.
Sadaya Morris, a 28-year-old driver from Plainfield, N.J., used to run loads as an independent contractor for a port trucking company. She started her own business under the name Pink Transportation LLC in September 2020 and can now bid for freight herself, a move she says will improve her earnings.
Sadaya Morris, owner-operator of Pink Transportation, transports a container in New Jersey. Photos: Desiree Rios for The Wall Street Journal(3)
Ms. Morris said drivers often sit for hours waiting to pick up cargo from the Port of New York and New Jersey, only to get held up again when dropping off freight with customers.
“It’s the operations that are the issue,” said Ms. Morris, who belongs to a trucker group called PAR18 that is pushing to ensure port drivers get paid for their time. “We’re obligated to wait there for two hours for free.”
In California, where cargo is piling up at the bottlenecked ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, recruiting additional drivers has been an uphill battle, said Lisa Wan, director of operations for RoadEx CY Inc., a Carson, Calif.-based operator that hauls cargo from ports to local yards and distribution facilities.
The surge of freight has left port truckers who make those short runs tired and burned out, she said. As of September, import volumes at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach were 25% higher year-to-date compared with the same period in 2020.
Some port truckers who make those runs have switched to become long-haul drivers, who move freight over a distance of 250 miles or more, as rates to move goods out of state have skyrocketed, Ms. Wan said.
Other drivers have turned to local delivery work, which doesn’t typically involve overnights on the road, or left the industry altogether, opting for jobs with more predictable hours.
Jesse Milligan of West Lafayette, Ohio, is a third-generation trucker who started driving in 2009, after he got laid off from a steel mill. He hauled lumber, chemicals and military vehicles all over the country with his father, who owned his own truck, then bought the vehicle and went into business for himself.
He took a local job in September last year delivering and installing propane systems to spend more time with family. The pay is on the lower end of what he used to make, at around $50,000 a year, he said, but he gets home every night. With long-haul trucking, “you need to be on the road a couple of weeks at the time,” said Mr. Milligan, 37. “It’s just too hard with kids to plan anything.”
Passionate Web Designer with a Graphic Design Background, skilled in Elementor, HTML, CSS and WordPress. Creates seamless UX and UI with creative but functional designs.
