WANTED: 400,000 TRUCK DRIVERS
By Chris Isidore, senior writer at CNN Money.com June 9, 2010: 6:43 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Can't find a job? Maybe it's time to take your search on the road. The U.S. trucking industry will need to hire about 200,000 drivers by the end of this year, and will need to add another 200,000 by the end of 2011, according to the state of logistics report from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.

A number of factors will feed into this need for drivers, including retirements, tougher safety regulations designed to get drivers with bad records off the road and the need to replace drivers who were laid-off during the recession, according to the report. Overall the industry lost almost 150,000 driving jobs since the start of 2008. Rosalyn Wilson, the author of the report that was sponsored by Penske Logistics, said that even with continued high unemployment, motor carriers are going to face a challenge finding drivers needed over the next year and half."It's not a very attractive profession," she said. "People want jobs, but they also want their quality of life, to be home with their family at the end of the work day."

The median pay for a trucker stood at $37,730 in May of 2009, and Wilson said that wage probably fell in the last year as miles driven were reduced. But more miles and the driver shortage are likely to increase wages in the years ahead, she said. Wilson said during the recession trucking companies were in the unusual position of having significantly more job applicants than they had positions, as laid-off truckers and construction workers applied for jobs. But that surplus of applicants has started to wane with a pick-up in the economy in recent months. "We're already seeing shortages in some markets," she said. "As traffic starts to climb, we're likely to see the shortages get worse."

The forecast is for only a 4% to 6% growth in freight traffic for trucks this year and next, which Wilson says is a conservative estimate. Typically freight grows by about 10% coming out of a recession, she said. "How much of a driver shortage we have will depend on how much the economy picks up," she said. But she said that broader demographic factors will make driver shortages an issue for years to come, regardless of the strength of the economy. About one in six are age 55 or above. "We're going to need 1 million drivers in next 15 years just to deal with replacing retirees and the normal growth of freight," she said.

"We've had 3½ years of the truckload recession," John Steele, chief financial officer of Werner Enterprises, said on March 9. "So, it is difficult for shippers to understand and comprehend that the market is turning, but it is clearly, clearly turning."

TRUCKERS NEEDED TO KEEP ECONOMY ROLLING
Trucking companies are trying to fill jobs by offering drivers cash bonuses and prizes such as boats and vacations to refer fellow drivers who switch to their firms. Base pay is rising, and trucking companies are guaranteeing drivers more time at home. Firms are offering generous 401(k), stock option and health care packages and other perks. Truckstops now have massage therapists and Wi-Fi computer technology.

Mirroring the U.S. population, the average age of truck drivers is rising, meaning more are retiring or nearing retirement. Plus, the government bans truck drivers from crossing state lines until they are 21, creating an impediment to recruiting drivers as they graduate high school. By the time they are 21, many workers have been trained in other occupations.

Some carriers are offering tuition reimbursement programs and are giving their drivers newer, plusher truck cabs that some nickname "condos" to make the time on the road more pleasant. Other firms are turning to expensive incentives. Little Rock-based Maverick Transportation not only gives its drivers cash bonuses for referring drivers who sign up with the company, the drivers enter drawings for prizes. In January, Maverick gave away a Harley-Davidson motorcycle worth more than $16,000.


BORDENTOWN, N.J. -- Companies have created jobs at a sluggish rate in the past few years, but there's one occupation for which employers can't hire fast enough: truck driving. A severe shortage of drivers could hurt the U.S. economy, which relies heavily on trucking. Those in the industry say openings number in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

The shortage is unlikely to end soon. The government estimates the number of truck drivers will rise 19% from 2002 to 2012, making driving one of the fastest-growing occupations during those 10 years. Trucking companies are trying to fill jobs by offering drivers cash bonuses and prizes such as boats and vacations to refer fellow drivers who switch to their firms. Base pay is rising, and trucking companies are guaranteeing drivers more time at home. Firms are offering generous 401(k), stock option and health care packages and other perks. Truck stops now have massage therapists and Wi-Fi computer technology. Still, the number of drivers is woefully inadequate. It's not just an issue of recruiting. Retaining drivers has become a constant headache: The turnover rate at large trucking companies was 116% in the second quarter, according to the American Trucking Associations."I define this as the most serious problem the industry has," says Duff Swain, president of Trincon Group, a transportation consulting firm in Columbus, Ohio. Companies he has been speaking to recently say 10% of their trucks are idle because they can't find enough drivers. It goes way beyond trucking. Trucks carried more than three- quarters of the goods that traveled in the USA in 2003. If there aren't enough drivers to haul the nation's products, the economy runs the risk of stumbling. Plus, if drivers can be found only by raising pay and benefits, those costs could be passed along and eventually could show up in higher consumer prices.

"If we don't have enough truckers, then the whole global transportation system bogs down and just makes life difficult and less lucrative for retailers and other businesses," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com in West Chester, Pa.

Truck driving's a tough job. The shortage is perplexing, given that job creation has been lackluster and 8 million people were unemployed in September. But issues unique to the industry are keeping jobs empty. Truck drivers often stay on the road for weeks at a time, keeping them away from family, friends and the comforts of home. That can make driving a tough sell.

"You have to like it to be in it," says Kevin James, 45, of Rochester, N.Y., a driver for 22 years. He travels coast-to-coast with his girlfriend, Carrie Green, 43, who became a driver four years ago after she was laid off from Kodak, and their three dogs. "It's as much a lifestyle as an occupation," says Jim Larson, a former driver who teaches at Smith & Solomon Driver Training, adjacent to the truck stop. "For those of us who are crazy enough to enjoy it, there is no better way to make a living."

What's behind the driver shortage:
* Demand. After sinking into recession in 2001, the economy has picked up speed in recent quarters. That means retailers need more goods on their shelves, and manufacturers need more parts to build machinery. Demand is especially strong this time of year, as stores stock up ahead of the holiday shopping season. Also leading to increased demand is businesses' desire to keep their inventories lean to reduce costs. This just-in-time technique means that businesses receive fewer bulk orders, and when they place an order, they need speedy delivery. That requires more drivers.

* Age. Mirroring the U.S. population, the average age of truck drivers is rising, meaning more are retiring or nearing retirement. Plus, the government bans truck drivers from crossing state lines until they are 21, creating an impediment to recruiting drivers as they graduate high school. By the time they are 21, many workers have been trained in other occupations.

* Bottlenecks. More traffic on the nation's roads means it takes longer for a driver to get from one stop to another. That means more drivers are needed to haul existing demand. Additional port and border security following the Sept. 11 attacks has also contributed to longer trips. Every 3% decline in trucking productivity requires an additional 60,000 trucks to haul the same amount of freight, estimates Bob Costello, chief economist at the American Trucking Associations.

* Regulation. Trucking firms and drivers say new rules on how many hours truckers can spend on the road, implemented in January, have fueled increased demand for drivers. The rules add an hour to the time a trucker can drive before stopping to rest, but also require a longer break between trips. The new rules also state that once the clock starts for the day, it can not be stopped. That means time for meals, bathroom breaks or other rests count toward driving time, potentially leading to reduced time on the road.

* Pay. The average annual pay for a truck driver was $32,134 according to a July 2003 survey by the Labor Department. That was slightly above the average pay for all so-called blue-collar occupations, but below the $37,784 average for all workers. Although base pay -- cents per mile -- has risen 22% in the last 10 years, inflation has risen 27%. Some in the industry and economists argue pay needs to go higher.

"There are not an awful lot of people who are raising their children to be truck drivers," says Scott Arves, president of the transportation sector at Schneider National, a trucking firm in Green Bay, Wis. "Until we are able to move wages up significantly, I'm not sure we are going to be able to attract vast amounts of people."

Trucking companies, which are also facing record diesel prices and huge increases in insurance costs, have been able to pass along some pay increases to their clients. But with competition stiff, they say there are limits to how much added cost they can pass along, which limits how much driver pay can rise. Owner-operators, drivers who own their trucks and contract with companies, say they're having an especially tough time passing along higher costs. Corey Coffin, 34, is getting hit on both sides. He owns three trucks and is having trouble finding people to drive them. At the same time, he's paying more to fuel the truck he drives, although he hasn't added up his costs for the year, yet. "I don't want to look at it," says Coffin of Lockeford, Calif., who has been driving for 14 years.

* Lifestyle. Even if pay were to rise substantially, it's still unclear if the trucking industry would be able to recruit drivers. Truckers, often lonely while spending weeks on the road, also can develop health problems, such as bad backs from sitting for hours at a time, and obesity, associated with grabbing often-unhealthy food on the go.
Nearly 7% of truck drivers and couriers suffered from non-fatal work-related injuries or illnesses in 2002, above the 5.3% seen among all workers, according to government data.

High demand for drivers
All this means that truck drivers have become hot commodities.
"It's almost like they're athletes being drafted out of school," says Larry Caringi, placement director at Smith & Solomon, who says some students go from being unemployed to, six weeks later, earning at a rate of $50,000 a year. Kathy Shepard, 47, of Delran, N.J., received her trucking license Sept. 23 and was hired less than two weeks later by UPS. With a lifelong passion for travel, she decided to go into trucking after being laid off from her job in the billing department at a trucking firm. She is making $14.70 an hour to start, 34% more than at her last job, and her pay is set to go up in a month.

"Everything is just falling into place," Shepard says. "I'm still pinching myself." Many trucking firms are trying to emphasize that once someone goes into the industry, there are many paths their careers can take. Last week, Tracey Edwards, a recruiter for Swift, the nation's largest trucking company, told a group of students about his time at the company, which has included stints as a driver, a trainer and now a recruiter.

"This is a career now, this is not a job," Edwards says. His presentation could have easily been given to a group of MBAs: It focused on the company's 401(k), stock purchase and health care plans, as well as a discussion of frequent-flier miles.

Trucking firms are also trying to become more family-friendly, offering drivers the option to take their spouses, kids and pets on the road. Many are developing regional routes, where a driver sticks to one region. If a load needs to go from Maine to California, the trailer could be passed from one trucker to another across the country, like in an Olympic relay race, giving the drivers more time at home. Some carriers are offering tuition reimbursement programs and are giving their drivers newer, plusher truck cabs that some nickname "condos" to make the time on the road more pleasant. Other firms are turning to expensive incentives. Little Rock-based Maverick Transportation not only gives its drivers cash bonuses for referring drivers who sign up with the company, the drivers enter drawings for prizes. In January, Maverick gave away a Harley-Davidson motorcycle worth more than $16,000. Maverick recruiting manager Brad Vaughn says his 13 recruiters also try to make their efforts more personal, sending birthday, graduation and get-well cards to prospective drivers and their families. "I'll ask, 'Did little Susie win her T-ball game?' "

But while trucking firms have gotten more creative in their approach, drivers such as Gary Word, 56, of Scottsboro, Ala., predict it will always be difficult to find people who can adjust to the lifestyle.

"I just enjoy the freedom of the road," says Word, whose truck, "Style N Grace," shines from a lot of care. "I wouldn't be interested in anything else."

TRUCKING APPEALS TO MANY TRANSITIONING WORKERS
Porfirio Colindres has worked in construction and cleaning jobs long enough to weather several economic downturns, starting with 1989 when he moved to the United States from El Salvador . But the prolonged one where he now lives, near Boise, Idaho, has made steady work hard to find since 2007. This month, after a 150-hour course, Colindres earned his commercial driver's license, or CDL, and started looking for a truck-driving job.
The hiring outlook is improving for trucking, experts say, and it is attracting many people from fields where jobs have dried up. As many professions become more specialized, truck driving continues to require few classroom-based skills.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, median hourly wages for heavy truck drivers were $17.92 in May 2008. But drivers don't even need a high school diploma to be hired."The trucking industry doesn't require it, and we don't," said Robert McClanahan, director of Central Tech Transportation and Safety Education, a public truck driving school in Drumright, Okla. "We do ask that they have a certain math and reading level, about sixth or seventh grade."

Applicants for truck-driving jobs do need a relatively clean driving record, a stable work history, some mechanical ability, and the strength and stamina to drive for long stretches and help with loading and unloading cargo if needed.
and they must be prepared to be away from home, unless they can land a coveted short-haul driving job.
"When you have a family ... you deal with a lot of guilt because you're probably not going to be there for every special occasion," said Alice Adams of Austin, Texas, a transportation writer and author of several guidebooks and manuals for truckers.

Trucking was hit hard in the recession. "This is one of the strangest times I've seen in my 40 years" in the industry, said McClanahan. "We've seen a lot of trucking companies go out of business. Trucking has always had a need for good drivers, and here all of a sudden they've had a freeze on hiring. It's just been a strange situation in the past year and a half."

But things appear to be turning around. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects overall growth of 9 percent in truck driving jobs between 2008 and 2018. Since the trucking market nationwide is huge, that's significant, representing about 291,000 new jobs. Trucking is one of the largest occupations in the country, with 3.2 million jobholders.
Industry observers also see business picking up. Orders for Class A trucks — the largest tractor-trailers — rose 28 percent this March over March 2009, said Clayton Boyce, a spokesman for the American Trucking Associations in Washington, D.C.

"What that means is we'll be pressured to hire more and more drivers," said Boyce. "Predictions are there may be a real capacity shortage." McClanahan, whose school saw its student body drop from 600 to 300 during the recession, said hiring suddenly increased at the beginning of April."The companies were trying to hire the really good experienced drivers, and they've been able to do that for the last year," he said. "But now that pool has dried up. Now they're starting to come back to the schools looking for entry-level students."

That's also the case in Michigan, where unemployment hit 15 percent in March."In the last 90 days, things have picked up, and employers are much more favorable to entry-level students than they were, say, a year ago," said David Wehman, coordinator for the truck-driving program at Baker College, in Flint. In Idaho, where Colindres is job-hunting, truck-driving jobs are expected to grow 17.5 percent by 2019, faster than the national average. That's because of an expected increase in agricultural production, said John Van Dyke, an economist at the Idaho Department of Labor. So who is applying for trucking jobs now? McClanahan, a former truck driver, says most of his students are men changing careers in their mid-40s. Many have at least some college. "We have had some people in here with master's degrees," he said."In the last 90 days, things have picked up, and employers are much more favorable to entry-level students than they were, say, a year ago," said David Wehman, coordinator for the truck-driving program at Baker College, in Flint.

In Idaho, where Colindres is job-hunting, truck-driving jobs are expected to grow 17.5 percent by 2019, faster than the national average. That's because of an expected increase in agricultural production, said John Van Dyke, an economist at the Idaho Department of Labor.

So who is applying for trucking jobs now? "We have many people in here with Master's Degrees," he said.
McClanahan, a former truck driver, says most of his students are men changing careers in their mid-40s. Many have at least some college. Ralph Dean, who runs the truck-driving program at the College of Western Idaho , a community college near Boise, has seen many builders come in lately. He also has taught a lot of people from Micron, a Boise microchip maker that laid off about 3,500 workers in 2008 and 2009. "They've got a great background," Dean said. "But they're used to being home every night, so this is a real transition. There is good money but they've got to be gone to make it."

That's a problem for Colindres, who has three children, two in elementary school. He doesn't want to spend nights away from home. But "if there's nothing else, I'll do what I have to do," said Colindres, who left school at 10 or 11 in El Salvador to work. He later took adult education classes in California and easily passed his truck-driving classes at Sage Technical Services in Caldwell, Idaho. Long-haul driving jobs are often the only ones available to new drivers. With seniority, they can move to positions closer to home.

After 32 years and 3.7 million miles behind the wheel, Jeff Thompson drives a tractor-trailer for FedEx but makes it home to his wife every night. Thompson, who lives in Kansas City, Mo., drives halfway from Kansas City to Chicago, where he meets a Chicago driver, trades trailers, then turns around and goes home."It took me a long time to get to this point, but I made it," said Thompson, an Oklahoma native who grew up driving farm trucks. He works 60 to 65 hours a week and makes $75,000 to $80,000 a year, he said.

"It's a good way to make a living, but it's a hard way to make a living," Thompson said. "When I started out in the 1970s, we used to travel all over the country, all 48 states."
Source: By ANNE WALLACE ALLEN For The Associated Press May 4, 2010 (AP)

FLEETS PURSUE QUALIFIED DRIVERS AS FREIGHT GROWS
Fleets Pursue Qualified Drivers as Freight Grows, Rules Tighten Seeking to capitalize on an ever-tighter market, many fleets are racing to sign up qualified drivers as freight demand rises and stiffer federal driver standards loom, experts said. "We can still find drivers, but we have to search harder," Steve Brantley, manager of driver resources for USA Truck, Van Buren, Ark., told Transport Topics. "There are more loads to be moved."

"The market has become more competitive for both owner-operators and experienced drivers," said Brooke Willey, vice president for human resources at CRST International. The company seeks drivers for 700 new trucks it will add by the end of 2011.

"The ability to expand our driver recruiting efforts and identify ways to attract drivers will be the key to that ultimate growth," Willey said. Bert Johnson, human resources director at Con-way Truckload, Joplin, Mo., agreed that it's more difficult to find drivers.

"Our emphasis has been on hiring to meet normal driver turnover," Johnson said.

So did Ron Massman, president of The Dependable Companies. "Our biggest challenge these days is to find good, qualified drivers," Massman said, citing a "very, very positive upturn in business."

The recruiting drive embraces websites, video and newspaper advertising and also includes some other less-than-truckload fleets. Con-way Freight has added about 900 drivers since March to keep pace with growth. Averitt Express also said it is adding drivers. FTR Associates recently estimated that fleets will fall 70,000 drivers short of hiring goals this quarter. Similarly, a survey by Transport Capital Partners found 60% of truckload fleets were experiencing a driver shortage.

"Several factors are playing into the driver recruiting shortage in the industry," said CRST's Willey, citing the federal Comprehensive Safety and Accountability program, or CSA, and capacity expansion in the industry as well as at CRST.

"[Carriers] may not say so, but they could be adding people that they think will pass the new criteria," said Satish Jindel, president of SJ Consulting Group Inc., Sewickley, Pa., referring to the CSA program's stiffer driver requirements. "People that may have passed a year ago now will be excluded. [Carriers] may want to get the people now instead of chase them afterwards," Jindel said.

Source: By Rip Watson, Senior Reporter This story appears in the July 5 print edition of Transport Topics.

TRUCK, DRIVER SHORTAGES SEEN AS TRANSPORT DEMAND RISES
TUCSON, Ariz. — Executives with two of the nation's largest motor carriers said freight demand has jumped so fast in recent months that some sectors are having difficulty finding trucks to transport their goods."About mid-February it was almost like someone flipped a switch and things started popping, capacity was getting tighter," Steve Elliott, vice president of brokerage operations for Schneider Transportation Management, said here April 8 during the Transportation Intermediaries Association's annual conference.

Elliott, whose company is a division of truckload carrier Schneider National Inc., said that following a solid March, demand in April has remained "pretty strong as well. I've told shippers, 'Rates are going up, guys, and they're going up quickly,' " Elliott said.

Craig Littzen, vice president of solutions and intermodal network at Swift Transportation, Phoenix, Ariz., shared Elliott's feelings. "We've seen a significant recovery in the short term," Littzen said. "Over the last 90 days we've been very pleased. When we look at recovery, we see recovery both in price and in other aspects of capacity utilization."

Source: This story appears in the April 19 print edition of Transport Topics. By Eric Miller, Staff Reporter Transport Topics Print Edition April 19, 2010