Logistics Executives Grapple With Worsening Driver Shortage Situation

Aug 30, 2019 at 10:19 AM CST
Latest Driver Shortage Forecast The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) latest forecast indicates that the (trucking) industry is expected to need 60,800 more for-hire over-the-road truckload drivers at the end of the year did not startle any trucking executive grappling with the shortage. But industry leaders say solutions vary from carrier to carrier and the best answers to the problem may be a hybrid approach that includes everything from better scheduling that limits time away (no easy trick for a long-haul truck driver) to better respect within the organization (driver complaints about being ill-treated by dispatchers are legendary) to the very basic answer of dollars that make sense. “The only real solution is to raise driver wages,” Chuck Hammel, president of Pitt Ohio, the nation’s 15th-largest LTL company, told Logistics Management. The average salary for a truck driver is $1,106 per week in the United States, according to a survey compiled by the web site Indeed.com. Salary estimates are based on 1,157,232 salaries submitted anonymously to Indeed by drivers, users, and collected from past and present job advertisements on Indeed in the past 36 months.

Aug 30, 2019 at 10:19 AM CST

Latest Driver Shortage Forecast The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) latest forecast indicates that the (trucking) industry is expected to need 60,800 more for-hire over-the-road truckload drivers at the end of the year did not startle any trucking executive grappling with the shortage. But industry leaders say solutions vary from carrier to carrier and the best answers to the problem may be a hybrid approach that includes everything from better scheduling that limits time away (no easy trick for a long-haul truck driver) to better respect within the organization (driver complaints about being ill-treated by dispatchers are legendary) to the very basic answer of dollars that make sense. “The only real solution is to raise driver wages,” Chuck Hammel, president of Pitt Ohio, the nation’s 15th-largest LTL company, told Logistics Management. The average salary for a truck driver is $1,106 per week in the United States, according to a survey compiled by the web site Indeed.com. Salary estimates are based on 1,157,232 salaries submitted anonymously to Indeed by drivers, users, and collected from past and present job advertisements on Indeed in the past 36 months.