The ongoing supply-chain shortages throughout the Covid-19 pandemic have put a spotlight on longstanding challenges plaguing the trucking industry. Driver training programs, for now, are left to prepare students for potentially undesirable careers unless industry leaders, government agencies and schools can come together to improve the lives of truckers.
For years, trucking operators have struggled with truck drivers leaving at higher-than-average rates, often to pursue a better quality of life — one that doesn’t require weeks-long stretches on the road away from home. Empty grocery shelves during the last couple of years have brought more awareness to the trucking industry’s workforce issues, which include an average annual turnover rate of 90%. It doesn’t help that trucking attracts mostly older, male individuals, which limits the candidate pool and leads to more retirements, experts said.
Experts point to years of “institutional failures” and deregulation as causes of the driver churn, rather than a lack of licensed individuals. For example, drivers spend about 40% of their workdays waiting in lines at loading docks, time that’s typically not paid. And in much of the country, there is one parking spot for every 10 trucks on the road, leaving drivers scrambling to find safe places to rest.
“There are plenty of truck drivers but the job as it currently stands will not attract an adequate workforce,” said Michael Belzer, a professor of economics at Wayne State University who has studied the trucking industry for decades. “We churn through drivers like crazy. It’s complicated and there’s a long-standing history behind this and people have to act.”
Teaching in discord
For those in the business of training future truck drivers, the state of the industry creates a challenging dynamic. Several truck-driving instructors interviewed for this story said that quality training is crucial to prepare students for the realities of a grueling and dangerous job — one that is critical to the U.S. economy (trucks move 72% of goods in the U.S.) and offers a living salary without a four-year degree. On the other hand, instructors acknowledge that students are entering a fragmented field with less-than-ideal working conditions, no major union and outdated infrastructure.
Students in truck-driving programs are having no problem receiving job offers given the current need for drivers, said Bradley Wallace, truck-driving head instructor at Bishop State Community College in Mobile, Alabama. The problem is retention. His program surveys students after they graduate and said that for a typical class of 16 students, five or six are still driving trucks three years after completing the program.
A former truck driver himself, Wallace said he doesn’t “sugarcoat” the realities of life on the road for students to manage their expectations as they start their careers. The eight-week program costs students $2,430.
“There needs to be some drastic changes,” Wallace said about the industry.
Likewise, Eric Smith, director of the CDL Program at Fayetteville Technical Community College in North Carolina, said that he sees many students entering the industry with “false expectations” about time on the road and potential salaries. Fayetteville Tech charges students about $538 for the 10-week program, which requires 400 hours of training. The college is currently graduating about 60 drivers per year.
“I don't have to sugarcoat or obscure certain things to get them to come into this industry or to get their money because really, we're not making any money off (students),” Smith said.
Community colleges, the least expensive training option for aspiring drivers, train about 30% of the trucking industry’s workforce, said Nick Geale, vice president for workforce policy at American Trucking Associations. Meanwhile, for-profit colleges trained 7,600 drivers last year, or 51% of all truck-driving graduates, said Jason Altmire, president and CEO of the Career Education Colleges and Universities. Public four-year and private, non-profit colleges account for the remaining 20% of trained drivers.
“There is a lot of turnover for different reasons, and we feel like we are helping with the supply of drivers,” Altmire said. “We do try to make our students aware of what that lifestyle is going to look like.”
Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) this month said it's now willing to pay new truck drivers $110,000 in their first year — about double the average salary of a long-haul trucker. Walmart is also revamping an in-house training program to get more drivers certified. Other operators across the nation have also increased starting salaries to attract new drivers in recent months. While higher pay could entice more drivers in the short term, experts say the turnover problem won't improve without major changes and reform.
A group effort
The Biden administration invited truck operators, drivers, economists and others in the industry to the White House earlier this week to increase awareness of trucking’s challenges and highlight the administration’s “Trucking Action Plan,” originally announced in December. The plan focuses on recruitment, training and financial investments meant to improve the state of the trucker workforce, which the American Trucking Associations claims was short 80,000 active drivers in the fall.
"All of you here today are people our economy should be built around, because you all, you all are the people who literally make it run," Biden said at the April 4 event. "That's not hyperbole. You literally make it run. I have nothing against investment bankers. They could all retire and nothing much would change. Y'all quit? Everything comes to a halt."
As part of the plan, the federal government said it is investing $30 million to help states expedite commercial driver’s license issuance rates to help bring more truck drivers into the field.
The administration also kicked off a 90-day challenge to expand registered apprenticeships across the industry to provide more affordable on-the-job training. The Department of Labor and partner organizations will help interested employers set up an apprenticeship program in just a few days, the White House said. Currently, many trucking operators train drivers onsite, but drivers then owe the company hours on the job, or cash if they leave the company for any reason.
The government also wants to boost the recruitment of veterans, women and young drivers into the industry. The Department of Transportation and the Department of Labor plan to host listening sessions for drivers, highlight best practices that can be scaled, study truck driver pay and unpaid detention time and set up a task force to investigate predatory truck leasing arrangements. The work will also include identifying regulatory actions that could better support drivers and driver retention.
Several in the industry interviewed for this story applauded the administration’s focus on some of the major issues. However, Smith at Fayetteville Technical Community College, said the efforts might be too late.
“If your car is running bad, eventually it's going to break down,” Smith said. “When it starts running bad, you need to do something to fix it then and not after it breaks down because now you have no way of getting around. That’s what's happened in this industry. They knew about the shortage, but because there was no spotlight on it, they pushed it to the side. Then when Covid happened, they realized. But now it's too late because it's going to take 10 to 15 years to actually get us out of the shortage that we have now.”
What’s to come
When asked what attracts students to the field given the lifestyle challenges and pay discrepancies, Wallace at Bishop State said that many students see an opportunity to quickly enter a career promising a middle-class salary. To qualify for a truck-driving program, students need to pass a drug test and show a clean driving record.
Likewise, Rex Spaulding, president of North American Trade Schools Inc., with commercial driving programs in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore that train over 600 commercial drivers a year, said that many of his students have recently lost jobs and see the program as a quick way to get back on their feet. The program costs $5,900.
Dean Faust, Trucking School Coordinator at Trenholm State Community College in Montgomery, Alabama, said he makes sure that his six-week program teaches students about staying healthy on the road and maintaining a decent quality of life. A former truck driver of 35 years, Faust said that students need to realize it takes extra effort to find healthy meals, time for exercise and quality sleep. Trenholm State currently charges $2,875 for the driving program but tuition is increasing this summer to $3,175 because of increasing fuel prices.
Even still, being on the road for days or weeks at a time takes a toll and forces many to leave. Some in the industry are optimistic that self-driving trucks could one day handle the longest treks, but Geale with the American Trucking Associations doesn’t see that happening any time soon. He does envision more automation entering the industry over the next few years, which could improve quality of life for drivers.
Newer trucks often now include automatic transmissions, which could appeal to a wider group of people interested in truck driving.
“Think about autopilot and how that improved pilots’ lives in the airline industry?” Geale said. “When they're off the ground, they can turn on autopilot and they can have a sandwich. They're still monitoring things but at the same time, they have something that's helping them monitor safety and they can use the restroom."
