OOIDA’s Spencer explains ‘mythical driver shortage’

On a recent segment of NewsNation, OOIDA President Todd Spencer provided insight into why there are reports of a driver surplus just months after the American Trucking Associations claimed the industry had a shortage of 61,000 drivers.

“When you talk about driver shortage, that’s one of those mythical topics that we’ve heard about for three decades,” Spencer said. “It’s perpetuated by companies whose real core issue is that there are plenty of drivers, but that they just can’t keep them.”

While mainstream media routinely relayed claims of a driver shortage throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, OOIDA maintained its stance that any issues were caused by large fleets’ inability to retain drivers. A true shortage would cause wages to increase, OOIDA said. Through the decades that claims of a driver shortage persisted, truck driver wages didn’t even keep up with inflation.

However, the driver shortage message reached the masses as demand surged during the pandemic, and thousands of new drivers entered the market.

On July 3, NBC News shared the story of truck driver Arnesha Barron and others like her who are now dealing with low rates because of overcapacity.

“But like thousands of other truck drivers across the country, Barron’s fortunes didn’t last long,” Shannon Pettypiece wrote in the article titled, “Truckers flooded the market during Covid. Now they struggle to pay their bills.” “Over the past year, shipping rates have tumbled, leaving her and other drivers who bet big on the trucking boom struggling to make a living.”

NBC reported that 15,000 trucking companies have shut down operations since October 2022.

Spencer told NewsNation that the driver shortage narrative stems from most truckers being paid by the mile. Considering that trucking is a boom and bust industry, it is beneficial for large fleets to have as many drivers available as possible during the good times and no financial repercussions for having a large pool of truckers when the economy is down.

“From a company perspective, you can never have too many drivers simply because there’s no real fixed cost for drivers as they are generally only paid for miles driven,” Spencer said. “If you don’t have much work for them and they sit around, they may grumble and leave but as long as you can replace them then you can continue operating the same way.

“You can be a multimillion-mile safe driver, and your pay is going to be the same as the guy who started last week. It’s a brutal industry on people.”

OOIDA, which is celebrating its 50^th anniversary in 2023, has been busy trying to improve the industry for truck drivers.

“We as an organization have been pushing hard for remedies for some of the biggest problems drivers have,” Spencer said. “Certainly being detained – drivers sometimes donate 30-40 hours per week simply because they don’t get paid for any of their time. Right now, a big, big slice of drivers struggle to find places to park at the end of the day. We’re trying to get Congress to pony up money to address the issue of having safe places for truckers to park … Our members regularly report that they can’t even find places to go to the bathroom when they’re delivering to shippers and receivers. And as stunning as that is, we’re having to address that through laws. It’s terrible.” LL