18 DC VELOCITY MAY 2014 www.dcvelocity.com
newsworthy
How far are U.S. trucking companies willing to go to recruit
qualified drivers? How about Central Europe?
Two asset-based truckers, one a large well-known brand
and the other a smaller lesser-known firm, have begun to
explore the potential of importing drivers from countries
in the region to operate their rigs, according to C. Thomas
Barnes, president of Con-way Multimodal, a freight broker
and third-party logistics service provider that spends about
$2.4 billion a year across multiple transport modes. Barnes
said he’s had a “strategic dialogue” with top managements
at both truckers, neither of whom he would identify.
Nothing formal has been planned, he said.
Barnes said trucking companies would increasingly look
outside traditional channels to recruit drivers amidst a
shortage that appears to be becoming more pronounced.
“Most asset-based transportation companies are looking
for a new angle or process that will give them a competi-
tive advantage in the increasingly difficult driver recruiting
space,” he said in an e-mail. “This is an example of a dif-
ferent approach that has been talked about [in concept] by
several companies.”
Such thinking underscores how creative—or desperate—
managements have become to put people in the cabs. For
several years, there have been concerns about driver short-
ages, but no one saw it in widespread form. Now, however,
it is starting to fully materialize, if comments and anecdotes
from trucking executives and analysts are any indication.
“The market for driver recruiting and retention was tighter
than I’ve ever seen it in the first two months of the year,”
Darren Hawkins, president of YRC Freight, the long-haul
unit of less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier YRC Worldwide
Inc., said at the NASSTRAC conference in mid-April. As a
20-year industry veteran, Hawkins has lived through several
periods of driver shortages.
The problem, which was thought to be confined to
truckload carriers whose drivers could be away for weeks
at a time, is spreading to almost every corner of trucking,
according to John G. Larkin, transport analyst for investment firm Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. “LTL, dedicated, drayage,
private fleets: They’re all crying for help,” Larkin said at the
conference.
Larkin said driver pay isn’t the obstacle, noting that even
carriers who pay drivers more than $70,000 a year, generally more than the typical truckload or LTL driver pulls in,
are struggling to find labor. Driving schools are also having trouble meeting their sign-up targets despite offering
students and graduates bona fide job opportunities and
making it easier than ever to repay loans. The problem is
the “societal blackballing of the profession” that has made
an unglamorous but critical and skilled trade undesirable to
those looking for work, he said.
According to the American Trucking Associations, the
trucking industry will require, on a net basis, 96,178 new
commercial drivers per year over the next 10 years. That’s
after deaths, retirements, and departures of all kinds are
factored in. The demographics are not favorable: The average U.S. driver is male, in his mid-50s, weighs about 250
pounds, and has a life expectancy about 10 years shorter
than a similar person who doesn’t drive a truck, according
to Larkin.
Jack Holmes, president of LTL hauler UPS Freight, said he
hasn’t had trouble finding and keeping drivers, noting UPS’s
relatively generous pay and benefits as well as the appeal
of the LTL segment, where drivers generally make shorter
trips and get home more frequently. Still, Holmes notes that
more folks are leaving the field than are entering it.
The situation is worsening as demand picks up—
albeit moderately—and capacity continues to shrink in part
because of the lack of qualified drivers, Holmes said.
Without some form of capacity relief, such as changes in
federal law allowing nationwide use of 33-foot double-trail-
Drivers wanted: English as a primary language not required
Jamison RFID, a division of Jamison Door Co. and
a supplier of rugged purpose-built RFID portals
and communications enclosures, has announced a
strategic partnership with Barcoding Inc., a leader
in enterprisewide mobility solutions. … Third-party
logistics service provider Genco has been chosen by
Drive Medical Design & Manufacturing to provide
transportation management and logistics services. …
ThinkLink SCS and LLamasoft Inc. have announced
a partnership that will enable ThinkLink to deliver
LLamasoft supply chain design software in India.
Additionally, Internet retailer Wayfair has chosen
LLamasoft as its standard application for supply chain
network design and transportation route optimization, and Sweden’s Lund University has selected
LLamasoft Supply Chain Guru as its supply chain modeling technology of choice for research and teaching. … HighJump Software’s TrueCommerce EDI
Solutions Group has partnered with V-Technologies
LLC, a provider of integrated shipping software
solutions. The collaboration allows the companies’
mutual customers using QuickBooks Enterprise to
link their EDI, shipping, and accounting systems.
In addition, Turkish apparel retailer LC Waikiki has
alliances
