Is the false narrative of a truck driver shortage finally coming to an end?
At the very least, the premise has endured significant blows in recent years and weeks.
The history
As you probably know, the American Trucking Associations has claimed a shortage of truck drivers since the 1980s. The group has maintained this stance when freight rates have been high and low, and even when turnover rates at large fleets have exceeded 100%. Regardless of the conditions at the time, ATA would say that more drivers were needed and that Congress needed to ease the path of entry to the driver’s seat to fix the problem.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has long refuted these claims.
For years, OOIDA has pointed to shockingly high turnover rates and argued that any problems with attracting and keeping workers could easily be solved by increasing wages and improving working conditions.
Sadly, many members of Congress and the mainstream media bought into ATA’s claims for years. But more and more holes in the narrative are being discovered.
A shift
Although ATA has maintained its stance that trucking suffers from a shortage of drivers, numerous organizations have joined OOIDA to refute those claims in recent years.
In 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor published a study that found there wasn’t a shortage and that any issues in the labor supply could be corrected by increasing wages.
Since then, ATA’s story has gradually been torn apart. Last year, there were several developments. FreightWaves published an article refuting ATA’s driver shortage claims, and mainstream outlets began to catch on, as well. In addition, economics professor Stephen V. Burks published a study that called ATA’s driver shortage claims “unconvincing.” Even worse, Burks concluded that the false narrative can lead to “dangerous” policies, such as allowing under-21 drivers to operate in interstate commerce.
This past month, even more blows were delivered.
At the Scopelitis Transportation Law Seminar in Indianapolis, Schneider National’s general counsel reportedly told ATA President Chris Spear during a public session that there isn’t a driver shortage.
“We don’t see the driver shortage,” FreightWaves reported that Thomas Jackson said to Spear. “We believe that truck driver hiring and retention follows freight markets … We’re not having a problem hiring drivers.”
The same week, The Wall Street Journal published an article about the trucking industry having too much supply, causing low freight rates.
“Analysts say the downward pricing spiral is the result of trucking capacity that remains out of step with broader efforts across American corporations to clamp down on the excess inventories that filled supply chains during the pandemic,” The Wall Street Journal wrote. “Although tens of thousands of small truckers have left the market over the past year, the industry still has far more trucks on the roads than before the pandemic after many new operators jumped into the business.”
Will ATA’s driver shortage claim end?
Over the years, OOIDA has continually pointed to numbers that show about 400,000 new CDLs are issued every year.
The reality is that there is no shortage of individuals who are willing to give the truck driving profession a try, but there is a shortage of people who want to stay in an extremely difficult and stressful job for low wages. Conversely, large fleets would rather pay entry-level wages than do what it would take to reduce turnover rates and retain their drivers.
Will the recent reports and developments lead to the end of ATA’s driver shortage claim?
Probably not. The good news, however, is that fewer people are believing it. LL
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