(Nov. 7, 2012) — The American Trucking Associations releasedย an analysis of the truck driver shortage, concluding thatย it has the potential to grow to 239,000 drivers over the next decade.
The current shortage, estimated byย ATA to be in the 25,000 range,ย is acute and limited primarily to the truckload sector of the industry; but that long-term trends could cause the shortage to explode in the next decade, ATA says.
โCarriers and fleet executives have begun expressing concern about their ability to identify and hire qualified professional drivers,โ ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said, โand with this report, we tried to identify where the impacts were being felt the most, why the shortage is increasingly worrisome and why it has the potential to get worse.โ
โOn average, trucking will need to recruit nearly 100,000 new drivers every year to keep up with demand for drivers,โ Costello said, โwith nearly two-thirds of the need coming from industry growth and retirements.โ
The paper, echoes many of the same themes highlighted earlier this year by the Canadian Trucking Alliance in an eye-openingย Blue Ribbon Task Force report on the Driver Shortage. That report examined the root causes of the driver shortage and several potential solutions for the trucking industry to undertake.
The ATA paper states that while private fleets and less-than-truckload carriers may have some difficulty hiring drivers, the bulk of the shortage was confined to long-haul, over-the-road truckload carriers.
In addition to industry growth, retirements and drivers voluntarily changing careers, ATA believes certain government regulations โ chiefly the yet-to-be-implemented hours-of-service changes and the federal governmentโs driver and carrier oversight program: Compliance, Safety, Accountability โ will exacerbate the driver shortage, while the industryโs transition to electronic logging is unlikely to have a significant impact.
