As Congress seeks solutions to a supply chain crisis that’s leaving shelves empty and consumers frustrated this holiday season, one suggestion keeps recurring: Address the trucker shortage.
The American Trucking Associations says there’s a need to fill 80,000 trucker jobs to satisfy America’s demand to move freight. The association asserts the jobs pay well but that there have not been enough quality candidates.
That theory stands in stark contrast to the views of an organization representing independent drivers, as well as those of at least four academics who study the industry.
They say there isn’t really a shortage at all.
High turnover and an inefficient supply chain that often leaves truckers waiting for hours without pay has given an impression of a shortage when what’s really needed is working conditions that retain drivers, they say.
“The driver shortage this year has become a fault line in schisms that were maybe already in the industry,” said David Correll, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Transportation and Logistics.
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Correll said he understands that the trucking industry feels there’s a shortage. However, he said, the perceived shortage is “not a headcount shortage … it’s just the people they have are really underutilized.”
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