HOME

Quote of the Day

Tough times call for tough quotes, including these timeless classics:

“Tough times never last, but tough people do.”
-- Robert H. Schuller, American televangelist, pastor and author

“The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”
-- Harry Golden, American journalist and newspaper publisher

My Point: Are you ready for the 'perfect storm'?

By Marvin Shefsky

The headline said it all: "Wanted: 400,000 truck drivers."

In a recent article on CNNMoney.com, senior writer Chris Isidore reported that the "U.S. trucking industry will need to hire about 200,000 drivers by the end of this year and will need to add another 200,000 by the end of 2011, according to the state of logistics report from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals."

Meanwhile, the Truckload Carriers Association recently sponsored a webinar entitled, "Weather the Perfect Storm - CSA 2010 and the Driver Shortage." The "perfect storm" as far as driver recruitment and retention is concerned consists of the convergence of three developments that we’ve been talking about in this column for several months: a smaller post-recession driver pool, growing freight volumes and the implementation of CSA 2010.

The webinar topics:
* How to use CSA 2010’s safety history data and the pre-employment screening program (PSP) to hire drivers.
* How capacity issues and CSA 2010 will influence driver recruiting.
* The relationship between PSP, motor vehicle records and safety performance history and how it will affect hiring decisions.
* The driver’s perspective on CSA 2010 and how it will affect driver turnover.

The coming driver shortage will be far worse than anything we have seen in the past. The biggest difference is the need to hire not just “qualified” drivers but “good” drivers - safe drivers who take their job seriously and take care of themselves as well as their equipment and freight. The word “good” may have only four letters, but it’s a game-changer.

It’s only been a few years since industry-wide driver turnover rates routinely topped 120 percent, qualified drivers were worth their weight in gold and every carrier in the country was scrambling to find bodies to put in their cabs.

The economy is still struggling to come out of the recession, but look for the trucking industry to lead the recovery, and look for the recovery to be accompanied by the return of driver shortages. They say that what goes up must come down. The reverse is also true. What goes down -- the economy, freight volume, over-the-road driving opportunities, driver shortages -- must come up, sometimes at alarming rates. We’ve all been waiting for freight volumes to pick up, and all indicators show this is starting to happen right now. Are you and your company prepared to handle the jump in business combined with the dearth of quality drivers?

Give us a call today to see how our driver magazines - Driver HEALTH and Over the Road - can help your organization find the quality drivers it’s looking for. We’ve done it for more than 30 years, and we are ready, willing and able to help keep your wheels turning well into the future.

-- Marvin Shefsky, Publisher/CEO
(Marvin@RampMediaGroup.com)

Return to Homepage