> But corporate America has become so parsimonious about paying workers outside the executive suite that meaningful wage increases may seem an unacceptable affront. In this environment, it may be easier to say “There is a shortage of skilled workers” than “We aren’t paying our workers enough,” even if, in economic terms, those come down to the same thing.
The "worker shortage" concept is seriously one of the dumbest memes of corporate America. There's a ton of people out of work, and it doesn't take much in the way of skill to be a truck driver. Companies simply aren't paying enough for what can be a very demanding job.
"it doesn't take much in the way of skill to be a truck driver"
It's harder than you'd think to do a perfect 90 degree backup of a full-size semi into a loading dock without jackknifing, or to develop the temperament to pay attention to a boring stretch of highway for 8 hours at a time. You're being trusted with a lot of valuable equipment and cargo, to say nothing of the insurance risk should you flatten someone's Mercedes.
Also, the working conditions in the industry are apparently not great - lots of management incompetence, unrealistic expectations, and pressure to break safety laws, and it's never the people pressuring the drivers into breaking the rules that get into trouble.
Yes, like incompetent management who tells a driver in freezing temperatures that they will not reimburse him for fuel additive to keep the truck from gelling up. Management was in Florida. The truck was in Montana. Eventually a call to a mechanic with a clue got the expense approved.
If there is a way for management to push a driver to cook the log book, they will. The best thing for drivers is the electronic log book that can't lie.
That doesn't sound "harder than you'd think", it sounds about as hard as you'd think. I'm sure that particular maneuver could be taught to the most apt students over a weekend, and as the article points out anyone can learn this skill in 6 weeks.
If the people they get in trucker school have a hard time learning these things, that's just another indicator that they need to put more money on the table to attract better students.
No the article says they can get the required government CDL in 6 weeks, Passing a CDL test is not much harder than a Reg Test, and many states have had people convicted of working with the schools in a Cash for Licence scams, the larges was in IL a few years back where a good % of all CDL's issued by the state of IL were simply paid for.
It take a hell of alot longer to become a proficient trucker. Long time truckers have nothing but disdain for these 6 week course drivers that are on the road.
I know when my father (who is a trucker) first become a driver I believe it was a 6mo or year long course with longer period as a "driver in training" with the company he was placed in, we was part of a driver team pair with an experienced driver. This was after being a driver for the US Army for 6 years driving a Deuce and half.
Today a Driver take a 6 weeks intro course and then it entrusted with 80,000 pounds going 65mph.... with no additional training.
The fact that insurance companies are fine with entrusting 80000 pounds truck to somebody who got CDL after six weeks tells me that it's adequate training and accident rate of new drivers is not much higher than accident rate of experienced drivers.
What that should really tell you is Trucking companies is that paying a 6 week driver peanuts + the extra insurance is still less than paying an experienced driver an acceptable wage.
With the Raise of "No Fault" States many trucking companies are also Self Insuring, since they only ever have to pay for the damages of their own equipment, which if it does not effect the operation of the the truck they will not fix anyway.
But sure continue believing that a 6 week driver is just as good as a 15+ year driver
That sounds like Owner Operator wages to me, which mean the $1.10 per mile must pay for the Payment on the Truck (which costs anywhere from 50K to 100K+), Maintenance on the Truck, Normal Business expenses as a Owner Operator is a small business, Government Fees, Road Expenses, Health Insurance, Self Employment Taxes, and the list goes on and on.
If a business owner raises wages, he solves his labor problem but spends more money and reduces profit.
If instead he complains about a labor shortage, then maybe politicians will pass a law allowing more immigration and he will be able to lower his wages and increase his profit.
It's beneficial for business owners for there to be a general belief in a labor shortage but it is not beneficial for people to believe they are stingy.
> It's beneficial for business owners for there to be a general belief in a labor shortage but it is not beneficial for people to believe they are stingy.
It's even better for the business owner for citizens to believe that their government plays a key role in "providing" jobs; it's what allows businesses to lobby government to change the rules to "help job creators" instead of just paying more.
Government or market, it's our choice. Lately, we're more and more choosing government to solve market "problems" that exist only because we are willing to let the government act on those problems. If we didn't, the market wouldn't have said problem.
Would never happen. People in certain countries get way too many free things and benefits, and are used to much higher standards of living. They'd be up in arms every time they saw an "immigrant" using it, or if an immigrant reduces the value of labor.
It's really unfortunate because the only reason most people are against immigration, deep down, is that they fear they will be usurped by cheap labor. And that is only a problem because we haven't allowed free-trade and free-flow of migrants around the world from the start. Instead, we built up barriers, and we've created dams. Of course people are now going to complain when the flood gates open and a valley gets washed out.
>It's really unfortunate because the only reason most people are against immigration, deep down, is that they fear they will be usurped by cheap labor.
There's many good reasons to be against immigration apart from that:
1) It lets companies play third world workers off against first world workers. We know that they tell the first world workers to shape up (i.e. work overtime; accept abuse & wage theft) or have their job shipped to China, but they actually do the same to the 3rd world workers too with the threat of insourcing.
After all, there are MANY times when it's a trade-off between more expensive but higher productivity 1st world workers and lower productivity, lower paid 3rd world workers. BOTH wages are driven down (often to unbearable levels) by tearing down trade barriers, because they can simply pick the workforce that is more desperate.
2) 3rd world countries often spend outrageous amounts of money to educate their workforce, only to have the cream of the cream high tail it to a high income country which gets all of the benefits of that education. This is a direct subsidy from poorer countries to richer countries that goes largely unacknowledged.
All the things you describe are symptoms of the fact that their is a wage-differential caused by trade/immigration barriers. That's why I said it has to get worse before it'll get better. Even if the current barriers create problems... More barriers will just make the subsequent correction more catastrophic for the individuals involved.
If countries were people, then 2) would matter. As it is, real folks pay to have their children succeed. I would guess that many aren't as interested in Where (home or abroad) as When. So its not all bad or wrong.
No no, many countries pay to have their citizens educated. The citizens often do not pay anything at all except in taxes. This means you can get the good (education) without paying for it (taxes) if you emigrate after you get your degree.
> Would never happen. People in certain countries get way too many free things and benefits, and are used to much higher standards of living. They'd be up in arms every time they saw an "immigrant" using it, or if an immigrant reduces the value of labor.
Don't give the immigrants any welfare then, and only let them stay as long as they have any kind of job (plus a few weeks grace period) or can prove they have enough money and a return ticket.
Culture is capital. The degree of social trust and respect for property needed to create a wealthy society is an historical anomaly. If we didn't have borders, the whole world would be the third world.
As far as I know, that equivalence betwixt "shortage of workers" and "not paying workers enough" holds for economists as far apart as Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes. That makes management's policy especially inexcusable.
Well, there can't be all that big a shortage anyway.
Last time I went to the US I found that supermarkets were stocked with food, gas stations with fuel, and lumber yards with lumber, so it seems that stuff is still getting from where it is to where it needs to be quite effectively.
And it's not like trucking is a good job. For that princely (!!!) $41k / year, you are often away from home. I'd bet you don't get comped for all the meals you eat on the road either, so there goes a bunch of money spent eating out, even if it is just at truck stop diners. If you have a family, and and your partner has a job -- as he or she must, given that shit salary -- knock $4-$10k/year off for daycare as well. I mean, I'm just stunned people aren't begging for these jobs. Not to mention that from some reading, and I unfortunately forgot the link, it appears that truckers have to choose between keeping their jobs or obeying safety regulations. But never you worry, if they get caught violating sleep requirements only they get in trouble, not the companies.
It's funny; this story is a perfect analogy [1] for [2] something [3] but [4] I [5] just [6] can't [7] think [8] of [9] what [10]. Meanwhile, true story: a former employer not only completely lied to me about what I'd be doing, but then threw a fit when I quit two months in. And sent potential engineering recruits a python puzzle with a naked woman in it. It's a shock why employers have trouble hiring is all I'm saying...
This feeds painfully into the "HN is an echo chamber of rich yuppie coastal urban programmers out of touch with reality". Its roughly a median income for Americans. About half of all jobs are worse and about half of all jobs are better.
"choose between keeping their jobs or obeying safety regulations"
Isn't this like every blue collar job, ever? In my limited student years experience working thru school its a blue collar mgmt technique. So in programming if there's a woman or a black guy we tell lies about "not a cultural fit" or whatever other BS. But in blue collar orgs if your boss wants to fire you, you'll get fired either for not using safety gear or taking too long aka fired for using safety gear. In both cases it doesn't really matter, if you're not the same gender / orientation / religion / race as your boss you're going to end up equally unemployed, although with different lies told if you're white collar or blue collar. It doesn't really mean anything at all on the surface.
But then again it is rather interdependent. Why would they want to pay more if they get enough people knocking on their door.
In other words for everyone saying "hell no" there is another that say "ok, i have no choice, i'll take it" well the business moves on.
I have also heard some East Europeans (Polish for ex) drivers come here (not sure on what kind of visa) and they are willing to work for much less, then send money home. Same patterns as farm workers from Latin America working here.
Concur (with anecdotal data from observation); Tons of Eastern European drivers now hauling through the heartland. I bet it pays better than being a software developer back home.
It used to be considered a pretty good job, from what my father tells me. I believe what it boiled down to was, the pay was good, given that the qualifications are low.
Your supervisor is 1000 miles away, you can listen to whatever you want on the radio, no one else has control over the HVAC controls, its not as physically relaxing as being a programmer (which might be good?) but its incredibly physically easier than virtually all other craftsperson / labor blue collar jobs, the constant change in scenery is almost better than one of those C-level corner window office jobs, the employers are fairly interchangeable so the best drivers "naturally" tend to pair up with the best employers and there's massive flexibility in where you live because there's jobs everywhere across the country (across the world?). Its both more introverted and more extroverted than programming work, varies greatly thru the day, and some like that variety.
Sometimes its interesting from an alternative history perspective to think about what to do if you were born into a world without computers. Or if you don't have the "knack" for hard science-ish work. You could live a lot worse than driving a truck around all day.
Also depending on your risk tolerance there are higher level certs, if you want to drive tank cars full of liquid hydrogen or plutonium around all day or whatever. Less hazmat jobs, but marginally better pay and working conditions.
To some extent, more than most jobs, you choose what you want to do. My semi-retired uncle who took up trucking in the 90s simply refused to drive in snow and hated driving in big cities. So he didn't. It really was that simple. There are very few other jobs where the market is so flexible that you can simply do what you want, when you want. If you want, you can get a truck driving job where you carry two beer barrels at a time uphill both ways into bars, but as an old semi-disabled guy he chose to haul five ton machine tools so in his entire career he never personally lifted anything heavier than a bottled water. If he wanted to spend a week at the grand canyon instead of being paid, he simply did so.
You'd need a seance for a couple years now, but pretty much any truck driver you'd run into will have many opinions.
From memory... don't work for large companies, because a place that doesn't do business in NYC or LA can't even think of sending you to the streets of NYC or LA, which according to him was no picnic for a truck and I'm sure is only worse now. If you don't want the office politics drama of not picking up a load to FL, don't do business with a place that has loads to FL, its that simple. I seem to recall hearing he had a deal with a franchise farm equipment dealer where by definition he never went out of the dealership territory other than occasional horse trading between dealerships. When he got sick of living in Iowa he moved on.
Much like the computer biz, life is better if you're not in the middle of it. Not being in the middle of everything meant feast or famine, which was OK for him.
He was retired, sorta, but still needed 90s era health insurance premiums (which I'm sure was comically low compared to current costs) and he wanted to avoid 401K early withdrawal penalties, so he only worked for restaurant and bar money. That kind of personal financial position helps a lot when looking for quality of life. If you demand 10% more pay than everything else, they'll pay it, but take it right outta your hide, horrible working conditions and bad routes. Better to love life at 50% of income than to exhaustively minmax up to 110% of income and hate every millisecond of it.
Most "IT type positions" would not be amused if you decided not to work that month because you have enough cash for now. But trucking was (is?) flexible.
There is a bias in the truck driving biz that is the opposite of "IT type work" where its assumed that an old guy will naturally be more reliable, harder working, and more knowledgeable about trucks and routes and just generally a better overall trucker. In that way it can be a decent second career.
He claimed that once him and his wife saw the country, it got pretty boring. I imagine anything can become boring, eventually. So it might be super exciting for only a decade, after which "eh".
Some other advice is there are downsides of exotic travel. I live in a state with no known non-escaped pet poisonous snakes and only one species of venomous spider. You go trucking in the deep south and you'll inevitably meet some kind of swamp animal that can kill you. Also as a Midwestern boy, suddenly after decades of not caring, having to be really careful about hurricanes on coastal runs was weird. On the other hand, when he got fed up with visiting an area, in only a couple days he could be back in the western mountains. Thinking of geography in terms of time not distance was another anecdote he talked about. No matter how hot it was in Louisiana he could be back "home" so to speak in North Dakota in a couple days. His relatives (us) treated him like a sailor who could be gone for months and needs years of warning for a wedding, but crazily enough he could get around faster than people with "normal" desk jobs when he had to (sick relative, whatever).
He got tired of his truck after a decade or so just like you'd get tired of a house. Truck dealerships make some commission just on people getting tired of the layout and windows, just like houses.
I wasn't super close to him but there was some weirdness in the 90s such that his retirement fund was somehow available to him with lower (no?) penalties because he bought a truck with it. Or maybe it was accounting BS and he figured once he made 10% of the cost of the truck in profit (which didn't take long) that he "wasn't paying a penalty on his withdrawal" even though technically on paper he did. This is complicated and worthy of some research if you're serious. I wasn't close enough to him to talk taxes and accounting but I'm sure basically setting up a small business is an interesting topic. (Oh and edited to add he had some tax weirdness where he was basically homeless but it turns out renting an apartment in an income-tax-free state was cheaper than paying income tax in a income taxing state, I'd talk to a real tax accountant about that before renting anything or filing anything)
"...truckers have to choose between keeping their jobs or obeying safety regulations..."
One of the most important tips I found in an older driver training manual I saw once was to buy a device that plugs into your radio and to record every conversation with dispatchers. When the company gives the driver grief about not breaking the rules, playing those recordings for the company driver safety officer was an important tactic.
Keep in mind that people like us are pretty spoiled by having marketable degrees. $41k is pretty nice compared to the other options available to Americans with high school educations.
Which isn't to say that truckers don't need and deserve more pay; just that they're not presently getting screwed quite as hard as most of the working class. It's more of an indication of how fucked up things have gotten that a trucker's salary can look pretty good.
They are slightly different, though I agree that most of the time it's a matter of greedy or shortsighted executives being cheap or expecting workers to bear the cost of training.
How they're different: you may well have a situation where the short term supply of workers is highly inelastic. In that situation, paying more won't help any shortage. And some jobs that you would think are elastic in the long term aren't as much as you might think: the majority of people may simply be unable to perform the job, or uncertainties about the job's existence in four years might mean the expected return of training is very low or negative.
If people are not sanguine about the existence of trucking jobs 10 years from now, it's no surprise that the actual supply of labor is very low and not looking to expand soon. If you're an employer, you're probably best off using your monopsonist position to drive down wages of the current supply instead of paying handsome sums to coax people into taking big risks in preparing and dedicating themselves to your jobs. Especially if you're an executive rewarded on the timescales of a year or two, and not on timescales of a decade.
For any individual trucking firm in a liquid market served by several such firms, the driver market is in fact highly elastic. If this Swift Transportation company which is featured in the article wanted to avoid a 20% decline in their share price, they merely had to walk into the break room at the competing trucking company and offer $10,000 spot bonuses to switch companies. Boom. Elastic.
Anyway, Swift's annual report says that driver wages as a fraction of revenue have fallen in each of the last two years, so it's their own fault if they came up short on drivers.
According to the article, the shortage is industry wide. The result of what you suggest would be a bidding war for the existing truckers, until the point the bidding has devoured all economic profit. We don't see that happening, clearly.
My hypothesis of implicit or explicit collusion among the dwindling number of trucking firms to drive down wages instead of drawing on supposedly elastic supply manages to explain that, on the other hand. The only other possibility would be an industry wide miscalculation that just happens to look the same as widespread collusion.
