PEORIA, Ill. — The recent pipeline outage that caused gas prices to spike in certain parts of the country brought to the top of many economists’ minds another looming problem related to gas prices.
There simply aren’t enough qualified drivers to transport gas around the country, which will likely mean a summer full of paying more than usual at the pump.
Some experts have predicted a ripple effect beyond just gas prices.
“You’re experiencing pain not only on the trucking side, but let’s just start at origin. If there are parts or products being imported from overseas, your supply chain is broken at the start,” said Curt Fisher, Director of Client Relations at Peoria-based G&D Integrated.
“If there aren’t enough steamship lines, then they’re getting to the ports, and there are delays at the ports. From there, you have to have a drayage carrier move that product out of the port, [then] transloaders are not able to get the support and the workforce to unload the boxes and reload them on vans, and then we have the downstream effect of the carriers are then not able to move the freight from here to there.
“Eventually, that rolls downstream into the retail market, [and] you’re going to pay more it, but also we have seasonal business, as well. Produce season always in the transportation industry sucks up capacity, because you’ve got to move it, it’s perishable goods, you can’t afford to have it sit around and wait, and you can get paid substantially for that, and so the capacity sucks up into the produce season, and then nobody else has the capacity to move their freight.”
Projections show a need for 1.1 million truckers in order to meet demand.
Fisher said G&D’s roster is “fairly strong, but I can say we have not had very good success in adding to our head count,” pointing to a lack of interest by younger people in joining the industry because of what he called an “unfair stigma” about the business.
“You’ve got women and gentlemen who do this who are reaching that 55-65 range quicker and quicker, and eventually, they leave the workforce because they retire. They came from a different time where maybe there was a stigma attached to it, but there were plenty of people in the industry who have remained in the industry,” he said.
“We live in a society now where everybody’s always been told you gotta go to college, you gotta go to college, you gotta go to college. You think about the individuals going to school right now, incurring mountains of debt, and there’s not necessarily a job in the field they’re looking for that’s going to sustain the amount of debt they’ve accumulated over the time they were in school.
“We have drivers who can make north of $85,000 in their first year of driving for us, and that is something people don’t think of. They think I’m going to go drive a truck, I’m going to be on the road, I’m never going to get to shower, I’m going to be dirty and stinky at terrible hours, and I don’t get paid very much, which is actually not the case at all.”
Illinois Central College truck driving instructor Ken Baker echoed those sentiments.
“For us, it’s a four-week class, and that’s for a day class, and for a night class, it’s eight weeks,” he said.
“So, you’re not going to school for four years to get a degree. It’s just to get a certificate, and that’s just to get you started, and then the company will train you.
“It’s a lack of information of how to become a truck driver. When they come out of school, there are companies in our immediate area where you can start a student out of school anywhere from $52,000-$70,000 a year their first year out of school.”
Baker said his enrollment has come down somewhat since COVID hit.
He said pre-COVID, an average class was comprised, on average, of 12 students. That has come down to eight.
Baker said he believes that number could go back up with proper recruiting.
“Put more information out there. Sometimes it just goes by word of mouth, which is great, but when you have it on a news station or a radio station, you get out to a little more people, and it’s like oh, I didn’t know I could become a truck driver,” he said.
“I know how much it costs to go to a truck driving class. There are grants out there to help people,” he added, referring to the Workforce Investment Act.
Fisher said he believes the best recruiting comes with incentivizing the job.
“Drivers, historically, have been that over-the-road guy who’s gone from home for three, four weeks at a time, and you get your experience doing that, you do your time, and eventually, you get to a point where you’re running lanes and you’re home every night. Now, everybody wants to come and they all want to be home daily, and I understand that and can respect that, but the reality is, that doesn’t necessarily make sense for our business, and you’ve got to be out on the road a couple days a week, if not more,” he said.
“I think we’re trying to make things more attractive and make sure people are aware there is some positivity to some of these roles.
“Is there a way to roll out something along the lines of the Pony Express? Those are things we explore.”
Fisher predicted the shortage of drivers and resulting price hike would last a year or 1.5 years, depending on when the current overall worker shortage facing America begins to ease.
Full interview with Fisher:
Full interview with Baker:
