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The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

nytimes.com

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Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#121

Post by _yosefk »

crdoconnor wrote: post #120
anifow wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. An hourly wage is a very special payment system which requires some kind of foreman to be sustainable. Otherwise, the labour industry tends to drift towards inefficiencies that allow them to claim money for less work. This is classic agency risk, where the incentives are not aligned, and heading down this path often entails major bureaucracies to try and keep everyone honest (like time clocks and punch ca…

>This is classic agency risk, where the incentives are not aligned Paying by the mile is even worse. How much incentive does the company have to make unloading and loading more efficient when they get it for free?

If drivers spend much time loading and unloading, and not getting paid, the amount paid per mile required to attract drivers will rise.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#122

Post by crdoconnor »

zo1 wrote: post #113
eru wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wouldn't have this conversation, if immigration was sane in the first place. Ie let anyone in. It's such a waste of human labour.

Would never happen. People in certain countries get way too many free things and benefits, and are used to much higher standards of living. They'd be up in arms every time they saw an "immigrant" using it, or if an immigrant reduces the value of labor. It's really unfortunate because the only reason most people are against immigration, deep down, is that they fear they will be usurped by cheap labor. And that is only…

>It's really unfortunate because the only reason most people are against immigration, deep down, is that they fear they will be usurped by cheap labor.

There's many good reasons to be against immigration apart from that:

1) It lets companies play third world workers off against first world workers. We know that they tell the first world workers to shape up (i.e. work overtime; accept abuse & wage theft) or have their job shipped to China, but they actually do the same to the 3rd world workers too with the threat of insourcing.

After all, there are MANY times when it's a trade-off between more expensive but higher productivity 1st world workers and lower productivity, lower paid 3rd world workers. BOTH wages are driven down (often to unbearable levels) by tearing down trade barriers, because they can simply pick the workforce that is more desperate.

2) 3rd world countries often spend outrageous amounts of money to educate their workforce, only to have the cream of the cream high tail it to a high income country which gets all of the benefits of that education. This is a direct subsidy from poorer countries to richer countries that goes largely unacknowledged.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#123

Post by crdoconnor »

hibikir wrote: post #47
lgleason wrote: post #19

Sounds like the same argument being used for more H1B visas. We cant find enough (cheap) resources locally so we need to import some from elsewhere willing to work for a pittance.

The strength of the argument changes with market elasticity. If a single company has trouble hiring, they can raise salaries. However, if the pool of workers remains finite, all you are really doing is switching which company has the hiring problem. If two people need an all day plumbing job done today, and there's only one plumber in time, one of them is not going to get it done, regardless of how much they pay. So…

>If a single company has trouble hiring, they can raise salaries. However, if the pool of workers remains finite

You mean fixed, not finite.

Which it wouldn't, if you raised salaries. The pool of workers would increase in size because people like money.

We're not talking about a job that only a fixed number of people could do. Half the working population could probably be a trucker if they tried, and they would if you raised wages enough.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#124

Post by crdoconnor »

_yosefk wrote: post #121
crdoconnor wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is classic agency risk, where the incentives are not aligned Paying by the mile is even worse. How much incentive does the company have to make unloading and loading more efficient when they get it for free?

If drivers spend much time loading and unloading, and not getting paid, the amount paid per mile required to attract drivers will rise.

What seems more likely, actually, is that you will get Akerlof's classic lemon market - due to the information asymmetry of paying by the mile.

The employer knows how much value the driver's gonna contribute for the money they pay, but the potential drivers aren't at all sure how much income they'll get paid for their time/effort. They basically only have hearsay from other drivers/ex-drivers to go on. Furthermore, some are getting burned and leaving the industry (I know personally of one; and there's another in this very thread), and telling others about their experiences.

The number of confounding variables and risks (including but not limited to loading/unloading) are simply too high for them to be able to make an accurate judgment about their potential income.

The natural effect of a lemon market is that the market dries up because the buyers/sellers simply stop transacting when the problems caused by the information asymmetry are too much.

That actually seems to be exactly the situation we're getting here. The wages don't seem to be that bad actually, but the risk is all piled on to the driver, so new recruits are very reluctant to enter the industry after hearing a few horror stories.

Lots of startups have gone down for similar reasons - pricing that is too complex makes potential customers go 'fuck it' and go with the devil they know.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#125

Post by cauterized »

crdoconnor wrote: post #123
hibikir wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strength of the argument changes with market elasticity. If a single company has trouble hiring, they can raise salaries. However, if the pool of workers remains finite, all you are really doing is switching which company has the hiring problem. If two people need an all day plumbing job done today, and there's only one plumber in time, one of them is not going to get it done, regardless of how much they pay. So…

>If a single company has trouble hiring, they can raise salaries. However, if the pool of workers remains finite You mean fixed, not finite. Which it wouldn't, if you raised salaries. The pool of workers would increase in size because people like money. We're not talking about a job that only a fixed number of people could do. Half the working population could probably be a trucker if they tried, and they would if yo…

But for any job that requires training there is a delay between raising wages and the labor supply expanding. Granted, for truckers it's not very long, but for something like software developers it can be half a decade, in which time those who choose to pursue expensive training in hope of eschewing a high-demand job also risk graduating into another burst bubble.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#126

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cauterized wrote: post #125
crdoconnor wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If a single company has trouble hiring, they can raise salaries. However, if the pool of workers remains finite You mean fixed, not finite. Which it wouldn't, if you raised salaries. The pool of workers would increase in size because people like money. We're not talking about a job that only a fixed number of people could do. Half the working population could probably be a trucker if they tried, and they would if yo…

But for any job that requires training there is a delay between raising wages and the labor supply expanding. Granted, for truckers it's not very long, but for something like software developers it can be half a decade, in which time those who choose to pursue expensive training in hope of eschewing a high-demand job also risk graduating into another burst bubble.

Also, you're just moving unemployment from one category to another. There's unemployment in every field. The fundamental issue is, with automation we no longer need everyone to work. As robotics advances the problem will just get worse. We've never, ever needed as many engineers as we've needed laborers and assembly-line workers. Making them all into skilled labor is absurd for many reasons, not least of which is, we don't need that many engineers.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#127

Post by JoeAltmaier »

fiatmoney wrote: post #13
rayiner wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "worker shortage" concept is seriously one of the dumbest memes of corporate America. There's a ton of people out of work, and it doesn't take much in the way of skill to be a truck driver. Companies simply aren't paying enough for what can be a very demanding job.

"it doesn't take much in the way of skill to be a truck driver" It's harder than you'd think to do a perfect 90 degree backup of a full-size semi into a loading dock without jackknifing, or to develop the temperament to pay attention to a boring stretch of highway for 8 hours at a time. You're being trusted with a lot of valuable equipment and cargo, to say nothing of the insurance risk should you flatten someone's M…

Standard truck-driver meme: how can you tell a teamster from and owner-operator? The operator can back it up.

Why? Because in a corporate yard (where all teamsters terminate) its somebody else's job to drive it in the yard.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#128

Post by yorak »

Automating a fleet of trucks has come up few times in these comments. Many commenters have raised concerns of difficult and special situations.

I have worked with machine vision and currently I'm doing my PhD in computational logistics (mainly working on automating the deployment of Vehicle Routing Systems). With this background in mind have given some tought to this: What would be needed, at least in the transition phase, is technology that would allow remote drive-by-wire of trucks in difficult situations (platforms, urban traffic) and wheater conditions.

Imagine a system not entirely unlike the unmanned UAVs the US is using but for civilian use of remote controlling trucks. One driver could probably handle dowzen or so trucks because they would drive under full automation at least 90% of the time. In addition the truck driver could have a normal 9 to 5 job.

Of course there are technical challenges like communications delay etc., but I'd like to hear your opinion on feasibility of such system.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#130

Post by JoeAltmaier »

yorak wrote: post #128

Automating a fleet of trucks has come up few times in these comments. Many commenters have raised concerns of difficult and special situations. I have worked with machine vision and currently I'm doing my PhD in computational logistics (mainly working on automating the deployment of Vehicle Routing Systems). With this background in mind have given some tought to this: What would be needed, at least in the transition…

Delay in the control loop is always critical to accurate control. But in the case of a large heavy truck, we already have to live with that (slow acceleration/braking/steering response built in).
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