Welcome back and thanks for reading The Bottom Line! I’m going to talk a little about the impending driver shortage and give some perspective on how real this is going to be.
One unfortunate fact is that over the last few years many young drivers with little experience just didn’t have success and dropped out of the driver pool. Many Owner Operators and young drivers, with so little freight to carry, left the industry. Extremely tight credit markets making it hard on a driver to buy a truck coupled with insurance companies strengthening their driver standards, young or inexperienced drivers just got pushed out of the industry.
Additionally, the impending CSA 2010 driver profiles becoming available shortly will have a lasting effect on net driver pool. While the effect of driver profiles is likely to be somewhat delayed, the loss of employable and insurable drivers will start to effect the driver pool in the next 6-24 months as insurance companies gain access to DSMS and carriers get wise to the liability they take on if they hire someone with a poor historical rating.
Lastly and probably the largest contributing factor to the impending shortage is the extinction of the large carrier driver training programs. Over the last few years it’s been pretty cost prohibitive for large carriers to keep their driver training programs alive and well. For years large carriers took CDL drivers with little or no experience, paid them a slightly lower wage, and made them part of a team to get them trained. As the economy soured and freight all but dried up, companies looking to cut costs did the obvious thing…they reduced, or in many cases, cut driver training programs all together. The fact of the matter is that large carriers, the ones largely responsible for the training programs that get young drivers to the training finish line, have largely exited the training game. Moreover, the cost to enter a private training course is too high for many would-be drivers. The net result is a hole in the driver pool that’s 3-4 years deep with no visible replenishment in sight.
The cumulative effect of the above mentioned factors leads me to believe that a driver shortage is a very real possibility. In fact, many growing carrier clients of mine are having so much trouble hiring quality drivers that they’ve hired hiring specialists to recruit quality drivers! I bet you wouldn’t have expected that just a few short months ago!
The Bottom Line: All-in-all the fact that there may be a driver shortage ultimately means that trucking companies are busy enough that they need to hire more drivers than they have now…that’s a great problem to have. In any case, protect the drivers you have now by showing appreciation, paying fair wages, and start recruiting NOW for potential open positions down the road. The shortage will be real and the best recruiters will probably be on top when it’s all said and done.
Hopefully you’ll check back soon to see our weekly updates. And always, if you have any questions for the Truck Insurance Pro…please just let us know and we’ll get back to you ASAP!
Keep on Rollin’!
Jason Stevenson
Truck Insurance Pro
a division of
The Hoffman Group
800.826.4006
jstevenson@thehoffmangrp.com
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learned a lot