Truck Driver Jobs Blog

American Truck Driver Job Shortage

Most people in the trucking industry already know this, but there is a shortage of qualified OTR truck drivers in the United States. The American Trucking Association reports that there are nearly 3.5 million truckers in the U.S. and that almost half of them are long haul drivers. The shortage is now considered to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 truck drivers. It is estimated that there will be a shortage of around 111,000 drivers by the year 2014 if current economic trends continue.

This presents a dramatic problem especially when one finds out that large truckload carriers reported an average annual turnover of 121% last year. I personally have heard that of one of the nation’s largest trucking company’s (they will remain nameless) hires of truck drivers, an estimated 42 percent of those are rehires. There is a tremendous amount of turnover (churning) in the trucking industry and a recent study says the same. That same study reports that the average truck driver makes less money than they did before the 2000 recession. A lot of this churning is the result of many truckers’ complaints about lack of home time and regularly scheduled home time not just truck driver pay.

Another issue to consider is the 219,000 truck drivers who are over the age of 55 that will likely be retiring in the next 10 years. Most truckers do not continue to drive beyond the age of 65. In the year 2000, drivers between the ages of 55 and 65 comprised roughly 14% of the driving workforce. Only 2.8% of that same workforce was made up of drivers who were 65 years or older.

The trucking industry may be facing these driver shortage problems because of issues outside of home time and pay. An estimated 95% of truck drivers are male. This is not to say that women have been excluded from truck driver hiring practices, but it does show a great example of an outlier. Another startling statistic from the 2000 census is that more than 80% of all truck drivers are white only. Roughly 12% were black only and 8% were some other race. Roughly 10% claimed some Hispanic origin. According
to these Census data, the Hispanic population is slightly under-represented, and the African American population is slightly over-represented among truck drivers in the American Truck Transportation Industry.
All of this while the female population is grossly under-represented.

In order for the American Truck Transportation Industry to continue to be able to move 85% of all goods in the United States, they have a long road to travel. Trucking companies must target minorities not just white males. They must also deal with drivers’ concerns over home time, the scheduling of that home time, and most importantly driver pay.

For a more in-depth look at this situation, point your browser to: http://www.truckline.com/NR/rdonlyres/E2E789CF-F308-463F-8831-0F7E283A0218/0/ATADriverShortageStudy05.pdf

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