If trucking wants to fix its driver retention problem, then the industry needs to take a long look in the mirror.
That was OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh’s message during an online discussion about truck driver recruitment on Wednesday, June 18. “Where’s the Next Generation? Addressing the Talent Pipeline Crisis in Trucking” was presented by The Inside Lane, an industry newsletter. Pugh served as a panelist along with Next Generation in Trucking Association President Lindsey Trent and Robert Pierson, the vice president of driver recruiting for Mesilla Valley Transportation.
Large carriers often have a driver turnover rate of 90% or higher. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association contends that trucking companies are able to find a new crop of drivers every year but have difficulties keeping them in the industry because of low wages and difficult working conditions. Long-haul truckers are typically paid by the mile and are away from home for weeks at a time. To make matters worse, truckers must cope with a nationwide shortage of truck parking and are often denied restroom access at shipper and receiver facilities.
“As an industry, we have to admit our problems to truly make the job attractive,” Pugh said. “Who wants to come out here and give away 20 hours of free labor every week, try to find a safe place to park every night, not get paid overtime despite working 70 hours a week and missing your family? Lots of people come into the industry every year. The problem is that they don’t stay … Our industry needs to do a lot of self-reflection and self-repair.”
First, the trucking industry must end the narrative that there’s a driver shortage.
“There’s no driver shortage,” Pugh said. “There’s never been a driver shortage. That’s a myth. When you have a 90% turnover rate, you don’t have a shortage.”
The studies back up Pugh’s words. The most recent report refuting the driver shortage claims can be found in the 2024 National Academies of Science’s driver pay study.
Assertions of a driver shortage conflict with the basic economic principles of supply and demand, the study said.
In 2023, economics professor Stephen V. Burks and colleagues published a study showing that there is not a driver shortage. A few years before that, the U.S. Department of Labor also published a study that found there wasn’t a shortage. Instead, the department said that any issues in the labor supply could be corrected by increasing wages.
Pierson agreed that motor carriers with a turnover rate of 90% or higher need to make some serious changes.
“Almost every other industry would look at that as just god-awful,” Pierson said. “If you had an office turnover rate of 90%, you’d panic. You’d say, ‘What’s going on here?’”
Improving driver retention starts with good pay and working conditions, the panelists said.
OOIDA has played a role in the introduction of several bills aimed at achieving those goals.
In addition to allowing truckers to use their restroom, Trent said that shippers can make the truck driving profession more attractive by decreasing the amount of wait time for drivers. Of course, most truckers aren’t paid for this time.
Pugh noted that one path to change may come from Generation Z.
“My generation was willing to put up with a lot … We never said ‘Enough is enough,’” he said. “I don’t think younger people are going to put up with that. They want better work-life balance.” LL
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