Despite today's trucks being equipped with cutting-edge technologies and safety systems and truck driver compensation on the rise, still many driver seats sit empty. Here's why

Rarely has a single issue in trucking permeated every aspect of the industry’s successes and failures as has the truck driver shortage. While the issue is a perennial “Top 10” issue on the American Transportation Research Institute’s (ATRI) annual survey of critical issues in trucking, the truck driver shortage has experienced the perfect storm of growing pressures. External pressures include two straight years of a trucking industry recession, growing cost centers led by insurance and regulatory costs, legalization of marijuana and the continuing retirement of baby boomers and soon-to-be Gen Xers.

Another 800-pound gorilla in the room is the industry’s poor image among the general populous. People unfamiliar with how sophisticated new truck tractors are, or how well truck drivers are paid, still have an impression that trucking is a dinosaur industry stuck in the 20th century. In reality, modern trucks are loaded with cutting-edge technologies and safety systems. New over-the-road (OTR) trucks have sleeper berths that have every conceivable luxury that a small apartment might have. Furthermore, truck driver compensation has gone up annually by double digits the last few years. Walmart announced that anyone with a Class A commercial drivers license and two years of good driving history can start at $106,000 a year.

But still many driver seats sit empty. Prior to this recent trucking industry recession, there wasn’t a motor carrier in the country who didn’t turn down a profitable revenue load because they couldn’t move the truck from Location A to Location B. In ATRI’s Top Industry Issues survey, the truck driver shortage has been the No. 1 issue for motor carrier executives in five of the last seven reports. However, it is nowhere to be seen on the truck drivers’ Top 10 list.

While the truck driver shortage is a clear reality for motor carriers, there are academics and even truck driver associations who insist that, from a technical standpoint, the truck driver shortage is not real. The logic being that, once all the myriad issues referenced above are addressed, the truck drivers will come racing back into trucking. Whether that is true or not, the issues that dissuade people from entering, or staying in trucking are not insignificant.

A large percentage of Baby Boomers are retiring from truck driving jobs, and Gen Xers, first born in 1965, are starting the same process. The American Trucking Associations (ATA) now estimates that the industry’s driver shortage today is nearly 80,000 drivers and growing.

By looking at the numbers, it is clear that the industry does have a loyal veteran driver base. With a median age of 49, truckload drivers are the country’s oldest major labor sector in the United States, based on Bureau of Census data.

Most outsiders are surprised to learn that state legalization of pot has put a serious crimp in trucking. Nearly 45 states have legalized pot for medicinal purposes, and 28 states have legalized it for recreational use. And the entire country of Canada legally allows to partake in pot usage. So, it is hard for many people to understand that marijuana is still on the federal “Schedule 1” list of prohibited substances.

Truck drivers who think it is okay to smoke pot in a “legal” state will quickly discover they are out of a job as a truck driver. In some instances, truck drivers are ignorant of the conflict between federal and state laws, and others are actively choosing to give up their interstate driving jobs. According to the FMCSA’s Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, more than 130,000 truck drivers have tested positive for THC and have not started their return-to-duty process. Most industry insiders recognize that these drivers are not coming back to Class A truck driving; it is too easy to ditch the CDL, drive locally and continue to eat the brownies.

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While the truck driver shortage, at least from a carrier’s perspective, is worse now than ever, the attention and resources needed to mitigate the issues referenced above, are also at an all-time high. The ATA, along with the 50 state trucking associations, have developed numerous strategies for improving the industry’s image, highlighting the new realities and benefits associated with driving a truck in the 21st century, and partnering with government agencies to reduce the impediments associated with CDL training and testing.

With the economy expected to favorably turn in 2025, there’s no time to lose in prepping and retaining the next generation of truck drivers.

Yikes weed is killing the interstate trucking labor pool. Talk about unintended consequences! But 80k shortage median age of 49 and young people conflating work with leisure (podcaster looking at you all!!) seems this gap isn’t going to be closed anytime soon. Even if you doubled the pay to $200k a year being on the road for hours on end isn’t light work. Trucking does have a negative stigma to it but hopefully over the next few years younger people can really consider this profession instead of getting into massive amounts of student loan debt to get a degree the market/ real economy doesn’t value. Shortages like this I think might be independent of wages due to the nature of the work and any getting a CDL isn’t trivial. You got to have some intelligence!