Fullerton
Many of us in the trucking industry will know that there is a severe shortage of truck drivers, says Houston Truck Accident Lawyer Greg Baumgartner. The latest figures published by the American Trucking Association has found that there are upwards of 40,000 truck drivers needed to make up the shortage in a trend that is likely to continue. The ATA also estimate that there will be over 170,000 open trucking positions available by the year 2026, which is a worrying prospect.
Why is this happening? Many point to the fact that the modern generation are unwilling to meet the trucking lifestyle requirements and prefer to focus on their family and social lives over their work. Millenials say that they place a lot of emphasis on their social life and are not able to give this up for the sake of their job, especially when there are many careers that do offer a great work/life balance.
One idea propositioned could be reducing the age of commercial truck drivers driving across state lines to 18 years old could, in a move that is thought to increase the number of applicants. Truck drivers at the moment are required to be at least 21-years-old in order to drive from state to state. Despite increasing the number of drivers, many truckers point to the fact that by lowering the age, more accidents may in fact take place.
The only way to prevent this from being introduced is to compensate drivers for the interruption to their social life, and that can be done by increasing the pay on offer. This seems to be the only way to attract more people to the profession. Some trucking companies have in fact done this, but even then, they still have a lack of applicants. Another idea is to offer generous signing on bonuses to newly hired drivers.
The future of trucking may in fact help this shortfall. There has been a lot of news coverage recently about driverless trucks. Is this going to be the only viable way to transport freight in the future if more truckers are not joining the industry?
For more information, check out https://www.texas-truckaccidentlawyer.com/blog/truck-driver-shortage-solutions-and-dangers/
