A trucking firm primarily based in Fort Value, northern Texas, is providing to pay skilled drivers $14,000 per week—$728,000 a 12 months—because the U.S. grapples with a nationwide scarcity of truckers.
Sisu Power, which describes itself as a “cutting-edge trucking firm,” says candidates have to be over 25, with at the least two years of expertise, and should have a business driver’s license.
Jim Grundy, CEO of Sisu Power, instructed Texas TV station KENS 5: “Insurance coverage corporations will not insure you in the event you’re not 25 years previous, if you do not have two years of expertise. So, as a brand new driver popping out, these alternatives aren’t obtainable to you.”
Chatting with Newsweek, a spokesperson for the corporate defined Grundy is “hiring owner-operators of vans, not simply truck drivers like firm truck drivers.
“They need to personal the truck, and he [Grundy] helps them within the technique of buying a truck and to get their license,” the spokesperson stated.
The corporate’s director of recruiting additionally instructed Newsweek: “We’re frac sand haulers within the oilfield in West Texas. $14,000 is what our highest earners make primarily based on the quantity of a great deal of sand they run.”
The U.S. has had a truck driver scarcity for greater than 15 years, in keeping with the American Trucking Associations.
A shortfall was first reported in 2005, when it stood at about 20,000, the ATA stated. This quantity had “skyrocketed” to round 50,700 by 2017.
The next 12 months the business reported an excellent larger scarcity, “largely on account of strong business freight volumes.”
There are a number of causes for the scarcity “however one of many largest elements is the comparatively excessive common age of the prevailing workforce,” stated the ATA.
The issue has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the “momentary closures of state DMVs and truck driver coaching colleges [and] dried up the already fragile pipeline of latest drivers getting into the trucking business,” in keeping with a letter despatched to Congress by 117 organizations representing the U.S. provide chain.
“Because of the already crippling driver scarcity, corporations in provide chains throughout the financial system are dealing with larger transportation prices, resulting in elevated costs for shoppers on all the pieces from electronics to meals,” the April 14 letter stated.
The letter urged lawmakers to move the DRIVE-Secure Act, which has had sturdy bipartisan assist.
The laws goals to “treatment the nation’s rising scarcity of truck drivers by selling alternative and enhancing security coaching for rising members of the trucking workforce,” in keeping with the ATA.
The motive force shortages are anticipated to final past this summer season, Grundy stated. “That is the narrative that you simply’re listening to,” he instructed KENS 5. “That this factor goes to final anyplace from two to 4 years. And it could possibly be longer as a result of the inhabitants’s getting stronger.”
In line with the letter despatched to Congress, 70 p.c of the nation’s freight is transported by business vans and the business is estimated to require an “further 60,800 truck drivers instantly—a deficit that’s anticipated to develop to greater than 160,000 by 2028.”
The trucking business is forecast to wish round 1.1 million new drivers over the following decade, to deal with elevated demand from prospects and to interchange retiring staff.
ATA’s chief economist, Bob Costello, stated in late March: “With the impression of not too long ago handed fiscal stimulus, and the quickening tempo of vaccinations within the U.S., we’re more likely to see continued enchancment within the financial system which can drive not simply more healthy freight volumes, however are more likely to create much more demand for drivers, tightening the market, so motor carriers want to stay centered on driver retention.
“Whereas the driving force scarcity quickly eased barely in 2020 in the course of the depths of the pandemic, continued tightness within the driver market stays an operational problem for motor carriers and they need to count on it to proceed by way of 2021 and past.”
This text has been up to date with remark from Sisu Power.
