Gas prices, economy ease shortage of truckers

"If we have one driver that makes six miles a gallon and another that makes three, we're going to give it to the driver that makes six," he said.

Steve Wadhams — co-owner of Wadhams Enterprises in Baldwinsville, N.Y. — said his outfit had been running eight or nine drivers short in its 100-truck long-haul fleet, but it cut 15 trucks from that division in April and ended up letting some drivers go.

"We've had less pressure as far as driver recruiting goes," Wadhams said. "The economy falling off has really made a lot more drivers available."

Though the current economic climate has helped narrow the gap, it hasn't solved the driver shortage problem, said Rob Reich, vice president of driver recruiting at Schneider National, a Green Bay, Wis.-based trucking company that employs some 15,000 drivers.

Although it has been easier to hire drivers lately, the company's turnover rate remains at around 60 percent, Reich said.

To keep their trucks rolling, Schneider and other large trucking companies offer training programs for new drivers. Lately, though, Schneider has been filling its seats with more drivers who already have a year or more experience behind the wheel, Reich said.

"In the past 12 months, we've seen the number of experienced drivers hired surge," he said. "It's gone from 40 or 50 a week to about triple that."

Kelly Anderson, a consultant who advises trucking companies on how to attract drivers, said many have shifted their focus away from recruitment.

"There isn't what I'd call a driver glut, but right now a lot of the carriers aren't having to look at recruiting real hard because many are reducing the size of their fleets," he said.

Despite the recent rise in the number of available drivers, the trucking industry is still facing a long-term challenge when it comes to keeping qualified drivers behind the wheels of big rigs, said Bob Costello, chief economist for the American Trucking Associations, an industry trade group whose members include FedEx Corp., UPS Inc. and Con-way Inc.

There are always going to be ebbs and flows, but the underlying trends that have caused the labor crunch in recent years are unchanged, he said.

"The demographics are still working against us, and when freight volumes pick up (the problem) is going to come back with a vengeance," he said.

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