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Today’s Trucking: News

“The Ontario trucking industry is deeply concerned about the looming crisis facing our industry as a result of a shortage of drivers. Our driver workforce has been aging for some time because fewer and fewer young people have been choosing the trucking industry as a career or have been prevented from doing so by restrictive insurance practices that deny insurance to younger drivers. As the older drivers retire, there have not been enough younger drivers here in Canada to take their place,” said OTA president David Bradley in a press release.

Somebody is probably making the same excuses here in the U.S.

But until rates go up and trucks are sitting empty, there’s no shortage. Just because a company has a few trucks sitting idle, because they bought too many does not constitute a shortage. Just because trucking has to raise it’s rates because there is increased demand, does not constitue a shortage. Just because they have to raise wages to keep and attract quality professionals, does not constitute a shortage.

When produce rots in the warehouse, that’s a shortage. But so far there seems to be plenty of cheap freight for those dumb enough to take it. If I have to wait three days for a load, then drive empty 900 miles to get a decent load, there’s no shortage.

Ask the zillions of trucks in the truckstops waiting for loads out of Seattle and the Northwest. There’s no shortage.

Trucking companies pay by the mile, most pay some sort of layover, but it’s pocket change.

Instead of raising wages and raising rates, they hire more drivers because there’s a shortage. There may be a shortage of drivers that they can pay poverty wages to. That’s the only shortage there is.