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America has a truck driver shortage

washingtonpost.com

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Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#161

Post by PedroBatista »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #153
PedroBatista wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No robot or AI can deal with the dispatchers, lumpers and 95% of the loading/unloading sites. Ever! Humans can barely handle it.

So what? AI only being useful on highways is still useful -- if not still far off. Off-ramp the AI trucks into a huge ass parking lot where a human does the last mile(s).

Fair point, but most of the time that last mile is a very long mile ( double digits ) and includes many hours of waiting to get loaded/unloaded which can also be just a few minutes and once they're done they want you out of their property ASAP.

Driving on the highway is not the only significant part of the job, far from it and I suspect some people are very enamoured by their dreams/greed mixed with the holy tech, just like the pneumatic high-speed trains from the 50s/60s, then maglev, now hyperloop.

Efficiency gains on the existing tech + infrastructure will always win over revolutionary new tech.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#162

Post by UncleEntity »

perl4ever wrote: post #97

Apart from not having a CDL at this time, there is a simple reason why no amount of money is going to make me get a truck driving job. Driving jobs I see advertised require an accident free record, and I had a fender bender a couple years ago (even though it was the other driver at fault). I have no tickets, suspensions, or anything else, but the accident automatically disqualifies you.

I'm pretty sure by "accident free" they mean "at fault" since you can't be expected to be held responsible for the actions of others. My last job I had something like 8 not at fault accidents and could go get a job driving a truck tomorrow if I really wanted to (well, aside from the fact I let my CDL expire but that could be fixed).

I rear-ended a U-Haul with my company big rig (totally my fault) and they didn't care enough to fire me, just deducted some random amount from my pay and didn't actually fix the bumper on my truck. The U-Haul was fine, those truck are seriously solid it turns out.

I would go back to driving trucks but it's kind of a rough life...

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#163

Post by MisterTea »

corodra wrote: post #88

At a rough point in my life, I was a truck driver for CR England and Knight Transportation for a few days short of 7 months. You don’t start at 80,000 a year. That’s such a lie. You make about 600 a week to start, roughly, depending if you get enough miles. You don’t get the good routes, staying in well populated areas like the i5 corridor, at first. You stay in the middle of no where Arizona, North Dakota, etc. You…

The guys I meet who are pulling in good money are all union vocational workers. We're talking dump trucks, cement mixers, sometimes roll off (dumpsters/skips), and the holy Grail: heavy haul. I know a guy in New Jersey who works for a well known hauling and rigging company. Makes 130k/yr. Small shop of a dozen guys, no one makes under a 100k, and home just about every night. But good luck getting into those shops. Cronyism and nepotism abound.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#164

Post by shados »

rgbrenner wrote: post #4

If you're an employer and you cant find employees, the answer is virtually always to increase total compensation. Theres no reason $80k is the top end of the pay range for any job. The economy does not price jobs based on prestige, education level, or some other signal... that's a judgement made by certain people about what they think a job is worth.. not the market. The opinions of people about the worth of a job ar…

Depends on the profit margin in a field. Some industries have razor thin margins. Unless your competitors do the same as you do (and in some industries, your competitors are in other countries with different standards of living), you don't have a whole lot of choice.

Software/SaaS is able to give ever increasing wages because of near infinite supply of investor money and/or insane profit margins (which won't last). Some other industries, not so much.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#165

Post by FooHentai »

rgbrenner wrote: post #4

If you're an employer and you cant find employees, the answer is virtually always to increase total compensation. Theres no reason $80k is the top end of the pay range for any job. The economy does not price jobs based on prestige, education level, or some other signal... that's a judgement made by certain people about what they think a job is worth.. not the market. The opinions of people about the worth of a job ar…

>If you're an employer and you cant find employees, the answer is virtually always to increase total compensation.

Most cases I would guess this is true until you hit the point that the pay is enough to live comfortably. Then it changes.

My partner was recently approached for a position offering compensation more than 200% of their current for the same work. However,the hiring process is exposing red flags hinting at a toxic working environment: On-fighting, lack of planning, unreasonable expectations. I'm guessing this is the reason the pay they offer is so much higher than it 'should' be.

That position may remain unfilled for quite some time. Working conditions are such a major aspect of any job, and while folks will put up with a bad working environment if the pay is right, that only works up to the point of being comfortably paid. Once you reach that level most folks start to care more about what their work day feels like. Toxic work cultures are very hard to fix, too.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#166

Post by djajshgsjja »

StudentStuff wrote: post #13
HarryHirsch wrote: post #5

From the article: A few drivers told The Washington Post that they earn $100,000, but many said their annual pay is less than $50,000 (government statistics say median pay for the industry is $42,000). As for the bonuses, driver Daniel Gollnick said they are a “complete joke” because of all the strings attached. Yet the headline talks about 80 kUSD/year.

This is the nature of truck driving, the headline has been $100k/yr job without the need of a degree for years, but in actuality, only those who work very hard & cheat the books get close to that. Are you willing to drive while sleepy, break regs when the customer is demanding you drive longer to deliver their products (due to traffic delaying you or similar)? Its a really screwed up industry.

Just curious, how does cheating the books work for a driver?

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#167

Post by syshum »

StudentStuff wrote: post #13
HarryHirsch wrote: post #5

From the article: A few drivers told The Washington Post that they earn $100,000, but many said their annual pay is less than $50,000 (government statistics say median pay for the industry is $42,000). As for the bonuses, driver Daniel Gollnick said they are a “complete joke” because of all the strings attached. Yet the headline talks about 80 kUSD/year.

This is the nature of truck driving, the headline has been $100k/yr job without the need of a degree for years, but in actuality, only those who work very hard & cheat the books get close to that. Are you willing to drive while sleepy, break regs when the customer is demanding you drive longer to deliver their products (due to traffic delaying you or similar)? Its a really screwed up industry.

Very hard to do that today with Electronic logs and most companies going to Systems that track based on what the truck is doing not what the driver reports.

This is one of the reasons there is a shortage alot of those drivers that used to "cheat the books" (which is a whole other thing) stopped making as much money, and can not pull the same number of loads anymore

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#168

Post by [deleted] »

shados wrote: post #164
rgbrenner wrote: post #4

If you're an employer and you cant find employees, the answer is virtually always to increase total compensation. Theres no reason $80k is the top end of the pay range for any job. The economy does not price jobs based on prestige, education level, or some other signal... that's a judgement made by certain people about what they think a job is worth.. not the market. The opinions of people about the worth of a job ar…

Depends on the profit margin in a field. Some industries have razor thin margins. Unless your competitors do the same as you do (and in some industries, your competitors are in other countries with different standards of living), you don't have a whole lot of choice. Software/SaaS is able to give ever increasing wages because of near infinite supply of investor money and/or insane profit margins (which won't last). S…

[deleted]

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#169

Post by Karishma1234 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #145
Karishma1234 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that there should be any correlation between how better they are managed and CEO salary ? There may be there may not be it is irrelevant.

I thought the quality of management is the way productivity of a CEO is managed. So there should be a connection between that and his pay.

No. Pay is always based on what it would cost to replace you. It never depends on what you actually do. (What you are willing to pay for X always depends on what is the cost of replacing X with the alternative).

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#170

Post by toasterlovin »

skookumchuck wrote: post #122
toasterlovin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trucks are much faster than train. Depending on the cost incurred in having goods be unsellable for some period of time, trucks often make sense. Trains also aren't that much cheaper. I'm not sure why this is, but my hunch is that much of the cost in transportation is pick up from origin and drop off at destination and this essentially has to be done via truck. So, if you're shipping via train, you incur an additiona…

The reason trucks are cheaper is because the roads are paid for by gas taxes on cars. The weight taxes on trucks do not begin to cover the fatigue damage caused by trucks. Most of the repaving of highways is due to truck damage. Railroads, on the other hand, pay all their own track maintenance, and even have to pay property taxes on the track. The whole system is tilted against railroads.

FWIW, I didn't say that trucks are cheaper. It's been a while since I've priced this stuff out, but, from what I recall, trains are cheaper for going cross country. Your point still stands, though, if it's correct.
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