Scarce Truckers In Driver’s Seat Serious Shortage Forces Employers To Boost Drivers’ Pay, Improve Benefits

Ed Owen loves this job.

He’s heading home to San Antonio, bearing a load of aluminum in a white Fisher Freight rig with bold red lettering. The tall, dark-haired 36-year-old leads his preteen son and daughter, who ride with him in the summer, past the humming rigs at this famed truck stop an hour south of Dallas.

“Driving the truck, I think it’s the easiest job I’ve ever had. But it’s the lifestyle. You’re either a gypsy or you’re not a gypsy,” he said.

Owen has even more reason to love his job now. There’s a shortage of truckers like him, so since the first of the year, Fisher has provided Owens with insurance and a nearly 10 percent pay raise, to 23 cents per mile.

Many trucking companies are taking similar steps, hoping to recruit and retain precious drivers.

While the shortage has eased with the slowing economy from the “epidemic” levels that led to some parked rigs in 1994, it still persists.

There are roughly 2 million professional over-the-road drivers, and the American Trucking Associations estimates 300,000 new drivers will be needed each year for the next 10 years.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as bringing the industry to its knees, but it is a problem,” said Garry Brotherton, vice president of operations for TNT United Truck Lines Inc. in Spokane. “It’ll get worse before it gets better.”

With 35 terminals in seven states, TNT employs 2,000 people, including independent truck drivers, Brotherton said. Increased demand by customers to provide just-in-time delivery and other services has made it more challenging to find drivers who can commit to the rigors of the job.

Another factor is the dreary lifestyle. Spending weeks away from home and many nights spent sleeping in the cab turns off many drivers.

Long-haul truckers, who typically earn around $30,000 to $40,000 per year, often can make the same money doing easier work that doesn’t keep them on the road so much.

“It takes a special type of family to put up with a truck driver because you’re gone all the time,” said Al Goralewicz, 53, who was hauling a load of candy for San Antonio-based Bee Trucking Inc.

Goralewicz said he gets home to his wife about two or three days of every 10.

“It’s a lonesome life out there,” agreed Carmen Nelson, 51, of Missoula, Mont., an independent trucker along with husband, Willard.

, DataTimes