Driver shortfall expected to hit
239,000 by 2022
The nation’s truckload sector will find itself short hundreds of thousands of drivers by 2022 unless current trends change, the American
Trucking Associations (ATA) said in a report released in early
November.
The report forecast an overall shortage of 239,000 drivers in 10
years’ time. Most of that will occur among truckload carriers,
whose drivers travel long distances and can be away from home for
weeks at a time. The problem will be much less severe for the less-than-truckload (LTL), private fleet, and dedicated contract carriage segments, whose drivers operate shorter runs and are home
more frequently, the report said.
The trucking industry will need more than 96,000 new drivers a
year over the next 10 years just to keep up with the projected
growth in traffic volumes and to replace drivers who retire or leave
the business for other reasons, the report said. The combined
effects of driver retirements and traffic growth will account for
two-thirds of the shortage, the report said. The median age of
long-haul drivers today is between 55 and 57.
Currently, the truckload segment is short between 20,000 and
25,000 drivers out of a universe of 750,000 cabs used in over-the-road (or nonlocal) hauling. ATA called that ratio symptomatic of
an “acute” driver shortage.
MORE HURDLES AHEAD
About 90 percent of truckload executives said they were having
trouble recruiting qualified drivers, ATA said. The situation is
bound to worsen as the trucking industry feels the twin impacts of
the new driver hours-of-service regulations and the CSA
(Compliance, Safety, Accountability) 2010 initiative developed by
the Department of Transportation (DOT) to winnow out potentially unsafe drivers, the report concluded.
The hours-of-service regulations, slated to take effect next summer, would result in a 3-percent cut in truck productivity and force
companies to employ more drivers to haul the same amount of
freight, according to the report. The trucking industry is challenging the new regulations in court.
As for CSA 2010, the report found that 7 percent of the driver
pool is responsible for most of the carrier infractions when companies are scored by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA), the sub-agency of DOT that implements the program. While it will take time to push all substandard
drivers off the road, their eventual departure will shrink the available driver pool, the report said.
Noël Perry, head of consultancy Transport Fundamentals and
an expert on driver compensation issues, said his estimates of a
driver shortage are double the ATA’s projections. Though Perry
said the current shortage isn’t as dire as ATA contends, he agrees
that there will be a significant driver supply problem sometime in
the future. ;
—M.S.
short takes
Sick, a manufacturer of sensors and other
automatic identification solutions for factory and logistics automation, has announced
the expansion and relocation of its
Minnesota production and warehousing
operations to the Eagle Creek Industrial
Park in Savage, Minn. … Material handling
specialist Dematic has formed a Software
and Supply Chain Intelligence unit under
the leadership of Robert Nilsson, vice president and general manager. … Intelligrated
will showcase its latest conveyor and sortation technologies, order fulfillment systems, software, and services in Booth 2903
at ProMat 2013. … Working with Snelling
Search’s Military Division, Yale Materials
Handling Corp. and its dealer network have
hired 29 veterans since November 2011.
Likewise, Hyster Co. and its dealer network
have worked with Snelling to hire 32 veterans since 2011. … Clark Material Handling
Co. has begun a global social media initiative with the introduction of a corporate
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beta testing two tractors powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG)-only engines. …
Software and controls company Invata
Intralogistics Inc. has moved its Canton,
Conn., office to a new location in the same
city. … New QuickPick Light Pointer technology from Kardex Remstar will be on display at ProMat 2013 in Booth 3623. …
Automated Packaging Systems is celebrating its 50th year in business and the induction of its founders, Hershey Lerner and
Bernie Lerner, into the Packaging
Machinery Manufacturers Institute’s
Packaging Hall of Fame. … Vocollect has
created the Vocollect PartnerNet program
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Raymond Corp. is celebrating its 90th
anniversary this year. Raymond began producing lift trucks in 1922, when George
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Greene, N.Y. … UPS has deployed 40 new
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recently held its second annual Steel King
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dealers’ sales staffs.
