Without much demand for freight in the U.S., trucking fleets’ hiring rates have stumbled at a time when the industry needs to hire at a rapid pace in order to avoid a workforce crisis.
Though October represented a resounding success for the U.S. jobs market, the trucking sector had little to celebrate after the country’s strongest month of hiring since December 2014. Shippers and transportation analysts have described trucking capacity as “adequate” or even in excess, which means that carrier fleets have little incentive to hire. However, recent data suggests that the industry at a whole is tens of thousands of qualified drivers short of where it should be. In terms of hiring, carrier fleets are stuck between a rock and a hard place – and there’s not many drivers qualified to haul either obstacle away.
A weak October follows a weaker September
For-hire trucking added 400 jobs through October’s hiring boom. However, the same sector saw its headcount fall by 3,200 in September. October’s slight recovery was not nearly enough to make up for a September that hit the industry hard. That is not nearly the pace that is needed over the next decade if the industry hopes to avoid a labor crisis. An American Trucking Associations (ATA) report noted that the industry would have to hire at a rate of 89,000 drivers per year for a decade to dig itself out of the workforce hole it is currently stuck in.
“In terms of hiring fleets are stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
It’s not as if carrier fleets can expect the loss of drivers to stop after October’s positive – though miniscule – growth. A wave of baby boomers reaching retirement age means every industry – not just the trucking sector – is bound to lose workers. However, with the state that carrier fleets are in, this loss of the older segment of the workforce will be difficult to swallow.
The difficult stretch for carrier fleets is a far cry from the first ten months of 2014, when many firms focused on bringing new drivers onboard. The Journal of Commerce noted that from January through October, the number of employees added to trucking payrolls was 58 percent below what it was during the same period in 2014, representing a drop to 13,500 from 31,900. The lack of freight demand this year has severely hampered hiring rates thus far.
Qualified driver problem makes hiring harder
Additionally, qualified drivers are simply hard to find. Government regulation, among other issues, makes it difficult to find drivers who can live up to the strict standards they must meet before being hired.
“Fleets consistently report receiving applications for open positions, but that many of those candidates do not meet the criteria to be hired,” Bob Costello, the association’s chief economist, explained. “According our research, 88% of carriers said most applicants are not qualified.”
Carrier fleets will have to find some way to drive up hiring and identify qualified drivers soon, though. Hiring is not occurring at anywhere near the rates it should to avoid a workforce shortage ten years from now. The ATA predicts that without a hiring rate of at least 89,000 per year, the industry could find itself 175,000 drivers short by 2024.