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America has a truck driver shortage

washingtonpost.com

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Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#51

Post by CPLX »

Karishma1234 wrote: post #20
yasp wrote: post #2

I am so sick of this perpetual fallacy about labor shortages. If you can't find enough workers it means you need to raise the price you're offering. (But yasp the article cited one particular firm has already increased prices 15% this year.) Doesn't matter. There is a certain price at which the market will clear. If the market isn't clearing it's because the price being offered is too low. Keep trying.

By your logic entire concept of labour shortage is outrageous because any shortage will clear with high enough price. But for any job such as that of Truck drive the market value of that job is only X. Paying more than X would mean you should look for alternatives and get out of that business. As the truck diver salaries go up cost of everything that relies on transportation also goes up marginally. Suddenly the stru…

If the prospect of mass unemployment and the infliction of considerable misery on a large portion of the population is considered "the brighter side" then your argument contains some pretty consequential unstated value judgements.

What, exactly, is the point of commerce in the first place? Is it measured by some abstract efficiency metric or do real life humans figure into your analysis at all? If so, which humans count and which ones don't?

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#52

Post by gaius »

dkasper wrote: post #12
maxxxxx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our economy has split into areas where in some areas "talent" can get almost infinite amounts of money and in other areas it's simply not conceivable to pay people more. I wonder how free market people explain this. Based on the market theories I have heard it doesn't make sense.

As you pay truckers more at some point it doesn’t make economic sense to hire them. Some jobs are cost centers others are profit centers is one way of looking at it. Another factor is industries like trucking have very little differentiation so it’s a race to the bottom.

The goods being in location A rather than location B is the value add.

Logistics is a profit centre, not a cost.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#54

Post by opencl »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #7

Headline: "Here’s why few want an $80,000 job." Paragraph 5: "government statistics say median pay for the industry is $42,000." Well. There's your problem.

Short haul trucking has miserable pay and long haul trucking is a miserable job.

It's also not clear if the $80k jobs referred to here are employee or owner-operator jobs. If they're employee it's a massive outlier and if they're owner-operator the expenses are high and $80k results in rather pathetic take home pay.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#55

Post by 5DFractalTetris »

maxxxxx wrote: post #44
Karishma1234 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free market people understand these things pretty easily. I do not see why you are finding it hard. One obvious fallacy in your statement is that someone getting paid infinite money for talent. I have not seen any such examples so far beside Pentagon who get paid more and more irrespective of their incompetence.

For example CEO salaries have been increasing rapidly for several decades. Are they so much better now than 40 or more years ago?

Their business intelligence practice has gotten so much faster that they're probably planning 100 years out.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#56

Post by shams93 »

yasp wrote: post #2

I am so sick of this perpetual fallacy about labor shortages. If you can't find enough workers it means you need to raise the price you're offering. (But yasp the article cited one particular firm has already increased prices 15% this year.) Doesn't matter. There is a certain price at which the market will clear. If the market isn't clearing it's because the price being offered is too low. Keep trying.

The reason this hasn't happened in decades is every time there are labor gains the fed steps in to thrust us into a recession to destroy any labor gains thus salaries remain frozen in 1979, you salary is still wearing huge sideburns and a leisure suit while a sandwich and a soda from the market are $18. The fed plays a big role in suppressing wage income. Ultimately we create a society that punished hard work and rewards sloth on the part of the rentier class.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#57

Post by randomdata »

scarface74 wrote: post #22
yasp wrote: post #2

I am so sick of this perpetual fallacy about labor shortages. If you can't find enough workers it means you need to raise the price you're offering. (But yasp the article cited one particular firm has already increased prices 15% this year.) Doesn't matter. There is a certain price at which the market will clear. If the market isn't clearing it's because the price being offered is too low. Keep trying.

That doesn't always work as is the case for farm work once you make immigration harder. How many Americans if given a choice would rather make $40K a year doing nice and comfortable office work than make $120K a year (yes I'm making up a number to make a point) to do back breaking manual labor in the hot sun? Not quite to that extreme, but I'm giving up money now by choosing not to go into management and stay a senio…

As someone who is both a farmer and software developer, if you were going to force me to choose, I'd probably go with the $120k job. Although I see no reason to not do both and collect the $120k and $40k income.

> Some jobs are not worth the extra money to a number of people no matter how much money you throw at them.

Which is fine. As price rises, demand wanes. If strawberry pickers cost more than the consumer is willing to pay for strawberries, we'll stop growing strawberries and they can start eating something that is more efficient to produce (for example, something that is more easily harvested with machines) instead.

I will point out that this is why the formal definition of shortage is not "being able to buy what you want at a price you can afford", even if it is used that way colloquially.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#58

Post by [deleted] »

maxxxxx wrote: post #6
yasp wrote: post #2

I am so sick of this perpetual fallacy about labor shortages. If you can't find enough workers it means you need to raise the price you're offering. (But yasp the article cited one particular firm has already increased prices 15% this year.) Doesn't matter. There is a certain price at which the market will clear. If the market isn't clearing it's because the price being offered is too low. Keep trying.

Our economy has split into areas where in some areas "talent" can get almost infinite amounts of money and in other areas it's simply not conceivable to pay people more. I wonder how free market people explain this. Based on the market theories I have heard it doesn't make sense.

[deleted]

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#59

Post by [deleted] »

antidaily wrote: post #48
yasp wrote: post #2

I am so sick of this perpetual fallacy about labor shortages. If you can't find enough workers it means you need to raise the price you're offering. (But yasp the article cited one particular firm has already increased prices 15% this year.) Doesn't matter. There is a certain price at which the market will clear. If the market isn't clearing it's because the price being offered is too low. Keep trying.

The margins on this type of business are very low. I had a client who couldn't afford to process more than 20% of the invoices online (even though customers demanded it) because of 1.5% cc processing fee.

[deleted]
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