The article from the Chronicle Herald barely made mention of the “true” key factors that are responsible for the trucker shortage, including the biggest one of all for drivers…
Economic Exploitation:
“The act of using another person’s labour without offering them an adequate compensation.”
If you’ve never heard the term “Economic Exploitation”, it’s a polite way of explaining how drivers are skimmed every day with certain aspects of their job they’re not paid for. We’ll get back to this later in the article, but it’s one more thing creating a trucker shortage.
I recently saw a response to an article about the so called “driver shortage” from a driver that’s been doing this for over 40 years. He summed it up in a way we can all relate to.
“Over worked, over regulated, and underpaid.”
This is a far less desirable of an industry to be in then it was 30 years ago.
The trucker shortage is partly due to not wanting to be away for extended periods of time. It’s not a desirable occupation for attracting new drivers.
Supply and Demand
In regards to the truck driver shortage, simplify things with basic principles that you already know.
Supply and demand almost always dictate the value of products or services. When there’s a shortage, the price goes up. When there’s an excess, the price goes down. There are few exceptions to this basic rule of economics.
Wages have increased only marginally in trucking over the last 30 years, unless you’re in a more specialized segment. This is why many people have moved into oilfield trucking. When they need drivers in the oil patch, they pay the wages needed in order to get them.
“Hey, what the heck is he talking about? I only made $15/hr 20 years ago, and I make $20/hr now.” Yes, you may be making $5/hr more than you did 20 years ago. But how much more does it cost you to live today? Gas was roughly 1/3 the price 20 years ago as it is today.
Leave out all the terminology of inflation, cost-of-living increases, allowances, indexes, CPI (Consumer Price Index), COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) and just keep it simple.
As far as over the road trucking goes wages have barely (if at all) kept pace with the cost of living increases we’ve seen.
I always felt a “raise” was something you either earned, or were given because of an increase in the value of what you do. (In our case a shortage of drivers should have helped). Any other increase in wages are just a cost-of-living increase.
This is basically what a “COLA” is. Increases in income based on the rising cost of living. They are more common with fixed incomes (pensions), unions, government employees etc…
So please, tell me where the shortage or “demand” is, when our pay has been little more than stagnant?
Enough flogging of that, we only included it to prove this following point from the first line in this article.
“If there’s a huge trucker shortage, shouldn’t we have received more pay, respect, better benefits, or even pensions?”
The trucker shortage continues as many drivers leave the industry altogether for fly-in, fly-out high paying oil sands jobs.
