Long-distance truck drivers suffer from a shortage of supply, i.e. (drivers)

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RACINE COUNTY — You see them nearly reverywhere you go, but there are never enough of them — truck drivers.

 Those in the trucking industry say drivers are an aging commodity that is getting scarcer all the time, with the undersupply only likely to get worse and few good options in sight to moderate it.

 There are many classes of truck and truck delivery, but only one has a relatively secure supply of drivers: local deliverers of beer, soda and the like, said Sean Kilcarr, executive editor of the trucking trade publication Fleet Owner.

 “Everyone else has a shortage,” he said.  “No one wants to be a truck driver.”

Jon Coca, president of Diamond Transportation Systems, 5021 21st St., echoed that thought.

“It’s not the most appealing career in the world,” he said. “And there are roadblocks to becoming one in the first place.”

“We’re in a constant flux of: ‘Let’s just keep looking for drivers,’ ” Coca remarked.

According to the American Trucking Associations, the main shortage is in the for-hire trucking industry with haulers who are generally away from home for a week or more.

Demographics are working against the industry.

“A lot of baby boomers are retiring,” Kilcarr said, and the potential replacement population is smaller. “Everyone is competing for them.”

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello, who estimates the current driver shortage at 35,000 to 40,000, said the No. 1 reason is retirements.

Other big reasons, he said, include the tiny proportion of women in the trade: about 6 percent compared with 47 percent in the whole workforce.

Predictably, trucker lifestyle is a huge problem. Long-haul drivers may be home every weekend, but they may be away much longer, Coca said.

“Often it’s a job of last resort,” Costello said. Transportation companies can and have been raising pay, he said: the average increase was about 8 to 10 percent last year.

“It’s one of the solutions,” he said. “But it doesn’t get people home more often.”

Long time coming

Kilcarr said the driver shortage has been brewing for the last 20 years as a generation of truck drivers aged toward retirement while college was the assumed road to success for a younger generation.

“Young people don’t think about blue-collar jobs,” Kilcarr said. “And trucking is at the bottom of that list.”

One type of law is a real barrier to young people entering truck driving. An 18-year-old with a CDL can drive all around Wisconsin, Coca said, but he can’t send a truck from Racine to Chicago unless the driver is 21. Most states set the minimum interstate hauling age at 21, he said.

“From 18 to 21, that’s the period when you choose a trade,” Coca said, so many young adults would avoid truck driving and embark on a different career.

“(We should) make the career available just coming out of high school,” Coca said. “I think that would increase the driver pool.”

There’s another impediment to entry, Kilcarr said: “No one knows how to shift (with a manual transmission) anymore,” and the average fleet truck has 10 to 13 gears. Imagine maneuvering a long tractor-trailer and pulling 80,000 pounds, he said, “and you never learned how to drive (a manual transmission).”

However, the introduction of more trucks with automated mechanical transmissions is helping to lessen the shifting problem, Kilcarr said.

The cost of earning a commercial driver’s license can be $4,000 to $6,000, Costello said. Many employers will reimburse the new drivers over time, but they still must be able to pay it up front.

Compounding all of those forces, Costello points out, is the stress and frustrations of traffic congestion.

Free agency, rate hikes

Costello said the truck driver turnover rate last year was 95 percent. Many trucks had the same driver, he explained, but others had two or three.

“The churning is with new drivers,” he said. With many companies trying to keep their rigs full by offering hiring bonuses of $2,500, $3,000 or more, there is “free agency” in truck driving now, Costello said, and many are jumping around.

The driver shortage, and the rising pay levels to lure and hold them, hasn’t seemed to jack up the cost of goods yet, Kilcarr said – but that could change.

“In available (hauling) capacity, we’re at about 100 percent,” he said, “but freight rates have stayed relatively flat.

“Everyone’s waiting for that shoe to drop,” Kilcarr said. “And it will be a big shoe; it will be 8 to 10 percent.”