Truck Driver Recruitment and Retention Face Q2 Headwinds
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The trucking industry during the second quarter even amid signs that carriers are looking for drivers, according to experts.
“There’s a lot of people … in a holding pattern,” Tenstreet CEO Tim Crawford said. “What we saw on both the driver and the carrier side, a lot of people were going, OK, let’s wait for the dust to settle early in the second quarter, and as we got through the quarter, people started to get to the place of, the dust isn’t going to settle, and maybe we just have to, to torture a metaphor, trudge on through the dust storm regardless.”
The found that the pool of truck drivers declined in the second quarter even as the number of job postings grew. The Professional Driver Agency and Conversion Interactive Agency produced the report, which also noted that 67% of carriers are expecting to grow their fleet in the next 12 months.
“The shrinking driver talent pool and more passive job seekers are making recruiting challenging in today’s market,” said Priscilla Peters, vice president of marketing at Conversion. “With 41% of drivers saying they’re interested in ‘local’ driving jobs, carriers with regional and OTR operations are facing additional headwinds in recruiting.”
The report also found that of those remaining drivers, 46.8% are looking for a job. This marked the highest percentage of job-seeking drivers in the past three years. At the same time, 55% of carriers cited driver churn as a challenge, while 80% reported a lack of qualified applicants. Peters suggests that AI-powered technology can help with issues like passive applicants.
“While the freight market recovery doesn’t seem to be happening as fast as some would like, there are signs of recovery as the number of truck driver jobs in the market is growing,” Peters said. “While the economy hasn’t fully recovered, the movement we’re seeing on the recruiting front is interesting for sure. We are beginning to hear rumblings of driver turnover creeping up.”
Nils Jaeger of Volvo Autonomous Solutions says self-driving trucks will complement the industry’s workforce as freight demand grows. Tune in above or by going to .
The report points out that fleets remained focused on cost control and retention, even as they signal possible growth. For retention, the report found equipment to be the top issue among drivers at 33.7%, followed by compensation and operations.
“We’ve seen an uptick in equipment issues,” said Scott Dismuke, vice president of operations at PDA. “Companies are extending their trade-in cycles again, because of the uncertainty of the market, and not buying as many new trucks. Therefore, we have fleets that are aging and when fleets age, they break down more.”
Crawford noted that while market activity is down overall, there are some signs of positive seasonality trends as carriers become more restless. He has been keeping track of the lead and full applications that clients are receiving to get a sense of the driver market. Tenstreet is a driver recruiting software company with clients spanning both big carriers and private fleets.
“Lead applications are down like five points year over year, while full applications are up two or three points,” Crawford said. “Meaning that there is a meaningful decrease in the number of drivers in the market, but of the drivers that were in the market, they’re much more likely to go through at least the stage of a full application. They’re more motivated, more serious job seekers. We’ve never seen that big of a split before.”
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data shows for its Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse reached 233,019 in June. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics found the decreased 0.3% year over year in June.
“To me, that hiring data says fleets are still churning drivers at an accelerated pace, as growth in trucking employment numbers is relatively soft,” said Leah Shaver, president of the National Transportation Institute. “That presumption aligns with outcomes at nearly every fleet we work with. Anecdotally, they talk about their challenges in taming turnover.”
Mark Schedler, senior editor of transport management at J.J. Keller & Associates, questioned how much demand there really is for drivers given current margin erosion. He noted that freight rates are still struggling to recover, while demand remains lackluster. But when it comes to carriers that are looking to hire, he warned to be wary of low-quality applicants.
“The quality drivers, in my experience of 25 years in operations, they tend not to move around when the economy is iffy,” Schedler said. “The companies that are vetting drivers better be very careful and have a very good dashcam with coaching program because, if you get a driver with a little bit of history and a few flaws, you need to be all over that with remedial training.”
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