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Estimated 25,000 truck driving positions to go unfilled in 2013, who can fill them?

Take a look. Almost anywhere you look in the transportation industry, you will see some sort of report concerning the projected truck driver shortage. With the trucking industry well on the road to recovery from the recession, 2012 showed some favorable gains. According to the American Trucking Association, truckload activity was up 1 percent, truckload intermodal loads were up 20.1 percent and less-than-truckload tonnage increased 4.3 percent from 2011.

Predictions for 2013 show continued increases, but at a slower rate than 2012.

Overall, though, the shortage of truck drivers still looms. The industry will need more than 96,000 new drivers every year for the next 10 years, according to ATA, to offset lost drivers and older drivers getting out of the business. Fewer and fewer young people are moving into the industry as a way of life. An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 driving positions could go unfilled this year, according to projections.

So, where can the industry turn to fill the void?

Women.Rosie Riviter

According to statistics from 2008, 8.8 million people participated in one way or another in the trucking industry. Of those, only about 15 percent were female, of 1.3 million. That, however, involves the entire trucking industry, from offices to drivers.

There were about 3.4 million truck drivers in the United States in 2008, of which only about 166,000 were women. That comes down to about 4.9 percent of the total driver population.

The trucking industry has always been thought of as a predominantly male-dominated industry. The female presence in the industry, though, has been increasing over the past decade with more women drivers, owner and managers.

Several studies indicate that women are well-suited for leadership roles within companies. Those studies show that women are better at communication, engaging employees and overall planning than men. The same, I believe, would be true for the trucking industry and truck drivers. While the stigma of the industry stereotypically places a male behind the wheel of a big rig, women are well suited and perfectly capable of doing the same job.

The image of men being behind the wheel of big rigs, though, is perhaps the first and most difficult hurdle to clear when talking about women filling the gap. Another issue that could have an impact on women driving is the time away from home. This has also become an issue with male drivers, who want to spend more time with their families. The same would be true with female drivers and may develop the industry to consider shorter routes and delivery schedules to reduce the time spent on the road.

One area that will help in getting women more involved in the trucking industry, though, comes from the Women in Trucking Association. In 2012, WTA formed a separate, charitable organization known as the Women in Trucking Association Foundation, a nonprofit organization designed to provide funds for members seeking training in areas vital to the trucking industry.

After spending a year obtaining funds, the organization is now ready to award its first scholarships. The $500 scholarships will be awarded in four categories: leadership, safety professional, technical skill and professional driver. Applicants for the scholarship are able to submit a request for funding online at www.WomenInTruckingFoundation.org. To be awarded a scholarship, you must be a member in good standing with the organization.

Scholarship applications will be accepted through the end of July and scholarship recipients will be notified in August. Funds will be dispersed to the educational facility of the woman’s choice on behalf of the grant recipient.

It is a good start. Women and the trucking industry are a great fit. It is an employment pool the industry can draw from to overcome some of the shortages that are predicted and would benefit both the industry and women in the long run.

 

About the Author
Larry Hurrle is the editor of IT Magazine. Hurrle, 51, has been a professional journalist for more than 30 years at both daily and weekly newspapers in the Northwest. He attended Boise State University and has served as editor of the Kellogg Evening News in Kellogg, ID; the Argus Observer in Ontario, OR; and the Independent-Enterprise in Payette, ID.

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How Much is Policy Uncertainty Hindering the Economy?

By Jeremy West, Internet Truckstop Economist

Consider the following situation:

You operate a small carrier and are considering adding a few trucks to your fleet. There is a (hypothetical) politician who is campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat on a platform of further expanding the FMCSA regulations to require any commercial truck that crosses state lines to have two drivers in the cab with combined driving experience of at least twenty years. (You may think this hypothetical rule sounds ridiculous, but some opinions of the current CSA regulations indicate that such a proposal would not be that big of a leap). Suppose that this politician has a sizeable chance of winning his campaign. Are you going to buy any new trucks today, or wait (at least) until after the November election?

The above situation illustrates the role of “policy uncertainty” in shaping economic decisions. In this case, whether or not you invest in expanding your fleet will be partly determined by the outcome of the upcoming election. As a result of this uncertainty, you forgo making the decision until after the election outcome is known.

It isn’t just elections that create policy uncertainty. As was mentioned in a post to the Industry Economic Update LinkedIn group, this practice of delaying investment decisions is currently widespread in the economy. In a recent article on political uncertainty, the Washington Times notes, “[if] there’s one thing investors and employers hate, it’s not knowing what lies ahead.”

Two groups of academic researchers have attempted to quantify the effect of policy uncertainty on the economy. In their article, “Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty” (pdf), Scott R. Baker, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J. Davis link several measures of political uncertainty (such as the frequency of media references to policy uncertainty) to declines in real GDP, private investment, and aggregate employment. Separately, Sylvain Leduc and Zheng Liu find that uncertainty about future economic conditions is substantially responsible for the sluggish economic recovery that has followed the recession.

With an upcoming national election, a looming “fiscal cliff,” and continuing instability in the Eurozone, the economic climate is quite unclear. The outlook will remain murky until businesses and consumers can better determine the political environment in which they must operate.

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ITS Business Development Webinar Series

Internet Truckstop with the help of our corporate trainer Pat Dickard and the occasional guest speaker bring you weekly webinars to help learn tools to strengthen your business strategies in the transportation industry. Our webinars are also great for someone just starting in the industry or a veteran in transportation and helps you become more effective and efficient in a competitive economy.

To sign up for one of our webinars you can email Pat himself at patd@truckstop.com, sign up from our homepage at http://www.truckstop.com. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn for a fast and easy way to learn more about and sign up for that week’s webinar.

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Defensive driving or common sense

From the very first day  in drivers education when every driver  turns 15, the thought is pushed into our brains to “drive defensively”. Many of the people out on the road today do follow that rule, but to what extent is it that we are too defensive behind the wheel? Or is it defensive driving at all, maybe it is just using common sense when sharing the road.

Recently ATA (American Trucking Association) put out an article about the recent decision that the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) made to continue to hold the trucking industry responsible for every truck-involved crash. These crashes end up going on to the CSA reports, even those that the truck driver wasn’t responsible for.

When most brokers are hiring a carrier they will check out the driver’s CSA score through a Carrier Monitoring System (such as CACCI), this ensures the broker that their load will get to its destination in a timely and fashionable matter. But if the carrier has a low CSA rating because it has been in three crashes due to non commercial drivers texting and driving, drunk drivers or even just icy roads, this truly hurts the carrier. All three crashes are not their fault, but the carriers end up losing money in the long run.

ATA and other trucking industry groups have requested that FMSCA  develop a process where the police report is reviewed and determine the crash accountability. In addition to that, removing non-preventable crashes from the carrier’s CSA profile. It appears that after some pressure from special interest groups, FMCSA has put a halt to this action until further notice.

FMCSA did some research and found that  when driver actions are cited as a main reason for a car-truck crash, that the driver of the smaller vehicle is cited in the majority of cases. So, this brings us back to the original point of driving defensively, are the non-commercial drivers being too defensive on the roads or just not using common sense?