Posted on 06/29/2018 11:27:49 AM PDT by Titus-Maximus
LAKE MILTON, Ohio - Bob Blocksom, an 87-year-old former insurance salesman, needs a job. He hasn’t saved enough money for his retirement. And trucking companies, desperate for workers, are willing to give him one.
Age didn’t matter, they said. If Blocksom could get his “CDL” - commercial driver’s license - they would hire him for a $50,000 job. One even offered to pay his tuition for driver training school, but there was a catch: Blocksom had to commit to driving an 18-wheel truck all over America for a year.
So far, that has been too big of an ask for Blocksom, who doesn’t want to spend long stretches of time away from his wife of 60 years. “The more I think about it, it would be tough to be on the road Monday through Friday,” he said.
As the nation grapples with a historically low level of unemployment, trucking companies are doing what economists have said firms need to do to attract and retain workers: They’re hiking pay significantly, offering bonuses and even recruiting people they previously wouldn’t have considered.
But it’s not working. The industry reports a growing labor shortage - 63,000 open positions this year, a number expected to more than double in coming years - that could have wide-ranging impacts on the American economy.
Nearly every item sold in America touches a truck at some point, which explains why the challenges facing the industry, including trucking companies rapidly raising prices as they raise wages, have special power to affect the entire economy. Already, delivery delays are common, and businesses such as Amazon, General Mills and Tyson Foods are raising prices as they pass higher transportation costs along to consumers. A Walmart executive called rising transportation costs the company’s primary “head wind” on a recent call with investors.
(Excerpt) Read more at savannahnow.com ...
How about some of those idiots who pay $60K a year to get worthless Women's Studies or Afro-Centric Culture ....degrees? And then work as a barista.
Instead of being $200k-$250K in debt after 4 years, you could actually be ahead.
We have a millions upon millions of lazy layabouts collecting welfare and EBT in our cities. Wouldn't it be nice to get these people real jobs?
There are two catches:
I wish some brilliant entrepreneur could envision a way to make use of this potential labor pool. My personal opinion is that only divine grace can pull these people out of their muck, and chances for a mass revival are mighty slim.
That's exactly right. Drivers are typically paid by the mile, and as roads get more congested the pay effectively declines even if a driver's trips don't change.
On top of all that, a driver is considered "on duty" -- which counts against his limited hours of service driving the truck -- when the truck is being unloaded. He's getting paid $0 for that time even while he's on the clock.
The entire industry has to change ... and the American consumer has to stop relying on cheap sweatshop labor for their deliveries.
Push welfare to trucker programs with strict rules on job seeking and no vice purchases.
Time for a major overhaul of the railroad freight service, where one engineer can “haul” many, many, truckloads of freight, and most truck driver jobs can go “local”.
My grandson drove truck for a while, nationwide, but it only took him a couple of years of it to get sick of it, so, he left the trade.
I think rail is the way to go for long haul freight.
1. How many of those are retired?
2. How many of those can pass a criminal background check?
3. How many of those can pass a drug test?
I suspect very few of them are serious candidates for a commercial driving job.
the market will respond eventually, and creatively. there are other ways to handle this supply chain issue.
combo of rail plus delivery vans.
the infrastructure investment will take a while, but that’s one thought.
That’s exactly what it is. Talk to truckers and they’ll tell you that the regulations are insane and drives folks away from the job.
Let the DOT drive those trucks.
Here is an article which gives figures and definitions.
https://www.thebalance.com/labor-force-participation-rate-formula-and-examples-3305805
One fact from it - the labor force is 0.5% lower due to opioid addiction
One other fact, the male labor force participation rate for >20 year olds has dropped from 78% to 72% in the last 20 years.
Raise wages, cut regulation. They will come.
I'm not arguing they are employable, only that Americans as a whole are working at lower rates than in the past several decades. Older citizens may be part of it, also I've read that the amount of drug addicts has increased greatly, taking them out of the workforce also. Also, more "perpetual students" and Social Security disability numbers have increased significantly also - there are many factors
Yeah. This story came into mind. The truck driver was 86, and blew through a green light.
“Mother Is Killed And Her All Six Of Her Children Injured In Rt. 3 Accident”
“Not sure I want to be on the same highway with an 87 year-old truck driver, “
—
I damned well wouldn’t want to be——and I’m 85.
.
rail is nowhere near tapped out in terms of what it could do. agreed entirely.
Probably a tri-axle dump, they need that axle down to meet weight restrictions on so many pounds per axle. But you need to lift it to make sharp turns, otherwise you scrub that axle sideways (it’s usually the first of three rears) as the truck fights to go straight. Sometimes driver forgets to put it back down after turn (has to be back down in specified distance from turn).
Allow 18-year-olds to drive the rigs. Inner city youth(think Chicago) can GET OUT of the city and see the country. Sirius can give them a channel on career counseling.
Increased weight capacity and evens out the stress on the axles and frame.
Thanks, that’s kind of what I thought. I never see them down. You mean, a driver somehow has to anticipate a sharp turn in the road (or I guess there is a map notation) and pick them up, then drop them when the road becomes straighter?
Of course is this the main reason for the push to driver-less cars?
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