Watchdog group calls out carriers claiming ‘driver shortage,’ posting record gains
Another group is blowing the whistle on the “driver shortage” narrative, calling the current supply chain woes “self-inflicted” and accusing some carriers of “profiteering off the supply chain crisis.”
A Feb 7 report by special interest watchdog group Accountable.US examined rising freight costs and the perceived driver shortage in trucking. Their findings – for anyone in the industry – were not that surprising.
“While the industry has blamed its historic rate hikes on a growing 80,000 driver shortage,” the report read, “experts and rank-and-file truckers have argued that trucking companies have undermined their own workforce by slashing workers’ pay and conditions for decades.”
In an appearance on Yahoo Finance, Tony Carrk, executive director for Accountable.US, said that perceived driver shortages are simply the culmination of frustrations with issues in the industry that drivers have dealt with for years.
“Truckers themselves are willing to work, but we’re not addressing the problems that have been in the trucking industry that even predated the pandemic,” Carrk said.
According to Carrk, the notion of a driver shortage has been perpetuated by carriers, who have seized the opportunity to increase costs while passing the blame onto an overregulated and underpaid workforce.
The correlation between low pay and improving perceived shortages isn’t a new concept. A March 2019 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics concluded that if wages were to improve in the industry, any long-term labor shortages would be rectified. “As a whole, the market for truck drivers appears to work as well as any other blue-collar labor market,” the report said.
That call to improve pay for drivers fell on deaf ears and has continued to trend in the wrong direction. According to the Accountable.US report, “drivers’ pay has been more than halved from an adjusted median of $110,000 in 1980 to just $47,130 in 2020.”
Improving drivers’ pay would go a long way toward getting drivers back on the road, but Carrk says issues with pay are merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to solving some long-standing issues within the industry.
“If you look at the wages for the median salary for truck drivers in the last 40 years, they have been cut in half. The pay is not keeping pace, Carrk said. “But also just the working conditions.”
OOIDA has long refuted the myth of a “driver shortage.”
In a November 2021 statement, the Association said a number of issues that persistently plague the industry have led to poor driver retention – fueling a perceived shortage of drivers.
“A careful review of the facts paints a completely different picture, one that is marked by retention issues and, at times, an unattractive working environment due in large part to long hours and inadequate compensation,” the report said.
While many carriers are citing driver shortages as a key reason for the rising cost of moving freight, Carrk has another suggestion for the increased cost.
“What we’re finding is that corporate greed can explain a lot of the reason why prices are going up,” Carrk said.
The Accountable.US report reviewed financial data from seven large U.S. carriers:
- Knight-Swift Transportation
- TFI International Inc.
- ArcBest Corp.
- Old Dominion Freight Line Inc.
- Schneider National Inc.
- Yellow Corp.
- Werner Enterprises
All of the companies reviewed increased their rates in 2021 while seeing record profits during that same time. Despite that financial windfall, little was done by those companies to address issues affecting the retention of drivers.
“The big trucking companies are boasting record profits. They’re saying that they’re in the most profitable position that they have been in history, in some cases,” Carrk said. “Meanwhile, what we’re seeing is that the prices are going up for average consumers, and we’re not seeing any improvement for the working conditions for truckers themselves.”
The need for trucks and their importance to the supply chain is abundantly clear, and that has certainly been highlighted by the pandemic. Carrk said that while the need to mend a fractured supply chain is important, the industry should also use this opportunity to correct some of the issues that have affected drivers for years.
“I think yes, we do need to have more truckers because 72% of domestic goods are brought by truck. So it is a huge, vital part of the economy. It’s a huge, vital part of keeping the supply chains working,” he said. “And we need to address these persistent problems that have been occurring long before the pandemic, but obviously the pandemic exacerbated it.”
According to its website, Accountable.US is a “nonpartisan watchdog organization that shines a light on corporations and special interests that too often wield unchecked power and influence in Washington and beyond. … We believe corporations and special interests have too much power and the people have too little. It is our mission to address this imbalance.” LL
More on the “driver shortage” from Land Line:
Related News
