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Moscrip echoed the sentiment
about the dichotomy between small and
large fleets. “As the economy grows, the
big truckers are not,” he said, indicating
the big boys are leaving freight on the table
because they don’t have the folks to haul it.
Ken Harper, director, marketing and
communications, at Portland, Ore.-based
DAT Solutions, the second major load
board (the third being Getloaded.com),
said more carriers are posting on its boards
at this time of year, a seasonally slow
period for freight demand. Harper said
the industry has added a record number
of carriers over the past year, a trend that
has extended into 2016. Most of the new
entrants are owner-operators running dry
vans, the most common form of trailer
equipment. The drastic decline in the price
of diesel fuel over the past two years has
been a major factor in keeping carriers in
business, Harper added.
If there is a supply cushion created by
the influx of new drivers, it may be drawn
upon sooner rather than later. Moscrip of
Truckstop.com said that while the market is well balanced, it remains tight. A
3-percent or higher bump in 2016 U.S.
gross domestic product, which would correlate to a similar increase in motor freight
volumes, could push the market out of
balance, he said. Rising demand, coupled
with what Moscrip called a “tsunami”
of government regulations—such as the
mandate to shift from paper to electronic
logs, tougher truck engine-emission standards, and a possible reinstatement of the
controversial “restart” provisions of the
federal hours-of-service rules, which in
and of itself could curb driver productivity
by 3 to 5 percent—could quickly absorb
the available driver supply, no matter how
many newbies decide to try their hands
behind the wheel.
Still, technology’s growing influence
among drivers may mean that the old
cyclical days of drivers hitting and then
leaving the road at the first sign of macroeconomic difficulty could be on the
wane. “The drivers that embrace technology don’t tend to cycle out of the business,”
Moscrip said.
—Mark Solomon
Trucking firms use data analytics strategies to
avoid driver shortage
A driver shortage predicted for years by trucking firms could be reduced
if carriers use data analytics instead of professional recruiters to find the
best employees for the job, according to Stay Metrics, a trucking-industry
analyst firm affiliated with the University of Notre Dame.
Trucking companies across the U.S. have warned for years that changing
demographics and a more difficult operating environment would lead to
a shortage of qualified drivers, which in turn could significantly increase
the cost of bringing goods to market. The American Trucking Associations
(ATA), a trade group representing mostly larger fleets, reported a shortage of 48,000 drivers as of the end of 2015, a figure that could reach
175,000 drivers by 2024, ATA says. Some private forecasts said the magnitude of the shortage could be worse than that.
Trucking executives often exacerbate the problem by relying too heavily on recruiters, who tend to bring in large numbers of unsuitable candidates. This only results in increased turnover, according to South Bend,
Ind.-based Stay Metrics. Instead, companies can use data analytics to drill
into their own metrics, and use the results to recruit and retain the most
qualified truck drivers, the company said.
“The more the shortage is prominent, the more aggressively you have
to recruit,” Tim Judge, Stay Metrics’ director of research and a professor
at the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame, said during p. 19
