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CDL License Training Students

New Programs Encourage Students to Pursue CDL License

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The truck driver shortage remains top of mind for many throughout America. To combat this perceived shortage, schools are hoping to equip their students for bright futures in a booming industry. They hope to encourage students to follow a career path within logistics by providing classes that walk them through the process of getting their commercial driver’s license (CDL). With the help of these programs, the trucking industry will be able to welcome a new generation of younger drivers looking for long-term work.

Elgin Community College Truck Driving Program

Located in Illinois, Elgin Community College has set out to educate their students on the well paying, steady jobs available to truck drivers and how to join the field. The program requires 320 hours of classroom and road times to teach students all of the information and skills they need to get their CDL.

The school is laying the groundwork for an appropriate foundation of knowledge and experience that will set students up for a more successful future. Those who participate in the program also get a direct line of connection to professionals willing to help them drive and talk to them about their experience in the industry.

Truck Driving Program in Central Minnesota

Concerns about filling what is projected to be just over 4,000 job openings in the trucking industry led to just over a half-dozen local businesses teaming up with Ridgewater College, the Willmar School District and Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City School District to create and provide a class to help students obtain a CDL and fill one of the many available jobs upon graduation.

This new program is only available to 18-year-old students. At the end of the program, students will have taken “a classroom course, taken the written CDL permit test, obtained a required physical, gained experience driving a semi in a simulator lab and spent nearly 40 hours of behind-the-wheel training in an actual semi with an industry pro serving as a mentor.” All of this experience comes together to ensure that the student has received a well-rounded education on the job at hand, allowing them to help companies as well as launch their own career.

Guilford Technical Community College’s Truck Driving Program

Based in North Carolina, Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) has announced its intent to start a truck driving school on their Cameron Campus in Colfax. Faculty are anticipating a lot of interest in the program from students. With many drivers aging out, companies in the area find themselves constantly looking for drivers.

Guilford County hopes that the program will spark interest within the field, as logistics and transportation are a significant chunk of their businesses as well as the surrounding area. The school is hoping to shed light on the fact that the transportation industry is “one of the most profitable career paths available for students.”

In beginning these programs, schools are solving several issues at hand. They are filling the growing number of open positions within the industry while also helping students launch their long-term careers in logistics immediately upon graduation.

Kuebix - Driver Shortage Study

New Study Questions Validity of the Truck Driver Shortage

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It’s been taken as fact for many years that there is a shortage of truck drivers in the United States. Companies report problems covering their loads and even the American Trucking Associations announced that there will be a shortage of 174,000 drivers by 2026 if the current climate continues. Here are just a few of the logical reasons many believe there is a driver shortage.

For instance, the growth in popularity of e-commerce ordering has increased the frequency of shipments, especially for the final mile. Trends like “the Amazon Effect” have warped customer expectations to the point that most people expect their orders in just a few days, meaning shippers need to work hard to position orders to arrive in time. It’s also understood that Millennials aren’t replacing Baby Boomer truckers at a swift enough rate as the older generation enters retiring age. All of these reasons couple together to paint a picture of a truck driver shortage.

A recent study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is questioning this assumption. The study released in March 2019 questions whether the U.S. labor market for truck drivers is really broken. According to the study, discussion of a supposed driver shortage has been happening in the industry on and off since the late 1980s. They posit that real disequilibrium in a specific job market can only be sustained long-term if there is a systemic issue.

“This disequilibrium suggests either some unusual and persistent causal factor at work, such as a skills mismatch or a regulatory constraint preventing workers from entering employment or changing occupations, or a misapplication of economic terminology in describing the business situation.”

In layman’s terms, there needs to be some external factor making it impossible for enough drivers to be hired. Otherwise, as the study suggests, the market would naturally correct itself with rising wages and benefits. They suggest that since there are no causal factors preventing entry into the truck driving job market, there cannot be a driver shortage.

If you’ve ever taken an Economics course, you’ve probably come across the Law of Supply and Demand. This theory is generally used when discussing markets for purchased goods but is also relevant when discussing jobs. “The correlation between price and how much of a good or service is supplied to the market is known as the supply relationship. Price, therefore, is a reflection of supply and demand.” In this case, price = drivers’ salaries.

According to the study, if there is a real need for a service, prices will rise to bring the market back to equilibrium. There were, however, “indicators suggesting that the market for truck drivers has been tight over the period from 2003 through 2017: wages in the occupation have been strong relative to those in similar occupations…” To put it simply, there has been a shortage of drivers, but the market rebalances itself with adjusted wages to entice new talent to the industry.

Even though it may be difficult for companies who need to ship product to find drivers, in the end, they are finding enough. Somehow products are being delivered and sellers in every industry continue to be able to do business. If this is all true, the argument could be made that the availability of drivers is tight and getting tighter, but not at the point yet where vast changes in salaries take effect to bring the industry back to equilibrium.

women in supply chain kuebix

Celebrating International Women’s Day with a Look at Women in Supply Chain

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In recent years, women have become increasingly integral in all things supply chain, an industry that has traditionally been male-dominated. A survey published by Gartner in 2018, however, shows “sustained strong representation of women in the senior-most ranks of supply chain organizations relative to other functions.” This study was conducted in partnership with an executive women’s networking group that focuses on advancing women’s supply chain leadership in the U.S. called AWESOME.

The War for Talent

In another study by Gartner, the Emerging Risks Survey, they identified the talent shortage to be one of the preeminent risks for companies worldwide heading into 2019. Right now, more than 50% of the professional workforce in highly developed markets are comprised of women, and this number is rising. Therefore, industries that do not put an emphasis on attracting, retaining, and advancing women could find themselves at even greater risk from the talent shortage. Research studies have additionally found that more diverse teams perform better and are more innovative.

The Driver Shortage

Initiatives to attract and retain women in supply chain management roles have begun to grow in popularity. Right now, 37% of today’s supply chain workforce are women and that number is expected to trend upward. However, the percentage of women drops significantly for truck drivers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 6.2 percent of truck drivers in America are women. With the driver shortage causing issues for just about every company that ships freight, it’s crucial that the industry attract more female drivers to keep up with the demand as Baby Boomers age out of the workforce.

As wages continue to rise on average for truck drivers, there is perhaps only one prominent reason women haven’t flocked to become truck drivers, and that’s the unearned social stigma of driving a truck. Unlike some industries where women may find themselves paid unfairly in comparison with male counterparts, women and men are paid the same as truckers. Many carriers set their drivers’ wages based on mileage or hours driven. This should be a draw for women in the workforce.

Companies with fleets and carriers alike can expand their recruitment efforts to attract more women to overcome this gap. According to the American Trucking Associations, some companies are now paying truckload drivers roughly $53,000 each year and some private fleet drivers make up to $86,000 annually. Many companies are also offering increasingly competitive benefit options including flexible schedules and 401k options.

Women in the Supply Chain

While there is still a ways to go before women are equally represented in the supply chain industry, there are many encouraging signs. Trade show floors are more diverse than ever and women are increasingly enrolling in supply chain educational programs. According to SCM World’s poll of global universities, “women accounted for 37% of students enrolled in university supply chain courses.” Over time, it’s expected that women will have a proportional amount of positions in the supply chain industry.

Trucking in America *Infographic*

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The job of a truck driver in America is crucial. Trucking is the backbone of our economy and just about every industry would collapse without it. In fact, 71% of all freight tonnage moves on trucks in the USA. That means everything from food to medicine to building materials at one point probably rode on a truck.

There are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the US right now and there are another 5.2 million people who hold positions in the industry that support drivers. These positions include logistics managers, routers, schedulers and various other office or warehouse positions. Together, all of these people work to get products onto trucks and delivered to the end customer.

There’s a major problem, however. There aren’t enough truck drivers and this driver shortage is only expected to worsen. The average age of a truck driver in the states is 55 years old. That means there are many who are swiftly approaching retirement age and leaving the workforce. This wouldn’t be a problem if younger generations were taking up the mantle and backfilling vacant positions left by Baby Boomers as they retire. Millennials and Gen Xers aren’t filling these newly vacant positions, however.

In just 7 short years, the American Trucking Associations estimates that we will be short more than 175,000 drivers. This will put renewed pressure on an industry that is already strapped for drivers. It will be up to carriers to entice new labor out of the workforce by offering training programs and opportunities for advancement. Other technological advancements like truck platooning and autonomous vehicles could help to alleviate some of the pressure.

Another useful technology to leverage is Kuebix’s Community Load Match, a solution that facilitates collaboration between shippers and carriers. With Community Load Match, shippers can easily request and receive rates from a rapidly growing carrier community from Trimble’s network of 1.3 million commercial trucks and Kuebix’s community of more than 20,000 shippers. Shippers are able to transport their freight and carriers can fill their capacity, making it a win for everyone!

The trucking industry faces many challenges over the next decade. Without enough trucks to deliver all the goods produced in our economy, other industries would stagnate and everyday life would come to a halt. That makes it almost a certainty that the industry will rise to the challenge of the driver shortage and find new and inventive ways to mitigate the negative impacts. It will be interesting to see how the driver shortage progresses!

Trucker Infographic Kuebix

The ELD Mandate Adds to Truck Driver Shortage Woes

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Did you know that many truck drivers have said that they would rather quit the industry than use an ELD device? In April of this year, Overdrive did a survey of its readers that showed 70% of truck drivers were opposed to the ELD mandate. The magazine goes on to speculate what the marketplace would look like without these truckers, “Assume the 71 percent of independents who say they’d quit actually do, and apply that to carriers in the for-hire population with one to five trucks. This would equate to an overall loss of about 260,000 trucks, according to data mined by RigDig Business Intelligence, Randall-Reilly Business Media’s equipment- and business-data analysis unit. That would remove more than 10 percent of the industry’s capacity. When the 71 percent is applied to carriers with up to 15 trucks, it leads to a capacity reduction of more than 27 percent, or about 709,000 trucks.”

The American Trucking Association (ATA) expects the driver shortage to grow to 239,000 by 2022, primarily due to retirement and increased driver demand. Combine this with the notion that many drivers will quit when the ELD mandate becomes live next month and the ATA has seen double digit gains in the annualized turnover rate for both small and large truckload fleets, jumping 16 percentage points to 90%, the highest it has been since Q4 2015. For smaller carriers with less than $30M annual revenues, the turnover rate grew by 19 percentage points to 85%, the highest since Q1 2016. This news cements the acceleration of the driver shortage, making it an ever-critical challenge to be solved.

At Kuebix, we believe that the best approach to solving the driver shortage is for shippers to implement a four-part plan that focuses on young age groups to ensure a steady flow of skilled and energized individuals that see the profession in a new light. The plan to mitigate the driver shortage includes:

· Embracing Robust Technology – As younger age groups spend lots of time online and with their smartphones, using mobile device apps to track vehicle location and to update the driving experience should be a key focus for shippers. Virtual reality is being used by many transportation companies to train drivers. This age group also seeks tech-savvy employers that continue to apply technology to address transportation management challenges in the form of social media and disruptive technology, along with pursuing startups that use advanced tech to drive their business forward.

· Recruiting the Recruited – Tackling the driver shortage by opening the profession up to those with actual truck driving experience who find it difficult to move from a trucker in the armed forces and/or driving chops in war zones is another way to increase the number of drivers. The most attractive aspects of recruiting the recruited is the fact that drivers from the services are already experienced, which should lighten the load substantially from a training and education standpoint.

· Tapping into the STEM pipeline – As the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) curricula gains greater adoption from grade school on up, graduates learn problem-solving skills that can be used in transportation, along with other industries. By sponsoring STEM events, corporations can open the doors to their future workforce by showing students career paths to follow in the transportation industry.

· Recasting the Profession – Sitting back and waiting for the driver shortage to solve itself is not an aggressive enough solution that will end the issue quickly. The industry needs to get more determined, go on the offense and purse the above-mentioned opportunities. Think like the youth of today and reach them where they live, offer the tech they use, catch them at an early age and make sure they’re well aware that driving is much more than just steering a vehicle. Be at high school (and trade school) career fairs, be on campus just like college recruiters are and where members of the armed forces are concerned – be there for them when they need your support the most.

Plus, shippers need to be more creative and think of new ways to gain efficiencies and reduce costs. Technology like the Kuebix TMS can help by giving shippers high levels of visibility across their entire transportation networks—and connectivity among all partners. Cloud-based Transportation Management Systems (TMS) are helping companies connect in one place to less-than-truckload, truckload, and parcel carriers; receive real-time LTL quotes using direct carrier rates; and request and receive spot quotes using a single shipment management interface. Technology can help put a dent in the driver shortage challenge, while improving transportation operations – that’s a win-win for all parties involved.

Technologies to Tackle the Driver Shortage

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When you consider that the average age of a trucker is 56, you realize it’s high time to up efforts to recruit and retain younger drivers to address the driver shortage and ensure a future for this profession.

So how do we find younger, mechanically-savvy recruits? What would make millennials want to drive a truck for a living? The answer to the driver shortage is to hit young age groups where they live – which is online or on their phones. The bait on the hook would be technology, with the use of mobile and virtual reality front and center.

After all, when was the last time you were out and about where you couldn’t see at least one person on their smartphone?

Going Mobile

Mobile technology makes great sense as a recruiting tool from the shipping industry side as it’s used for so many aspects of transportation management and logistics be it fleet and order tracking, route optimization, or backhaul opportunity matching. All apply to the legions of individual truckers, where mobile can be a lifeline.

Truck owner/operators have a growing field of mobile tech options for making the best use and the most money at the least cost. Just look at Trucker Tools, which offers a single smartphone app to handle all the function previously only affordable by large corporations with sizable fleets of trucks. And it’s free.

The long list of things truckers can do with the Trucker Tools smartphone app is: find the nearest truck stop, get real-time diesel prices, and find the fastest truck route to your destination and more. The app’s Load Track feature enable truckers to receive automated pickup and delivery confirmations. Other features help drivers find medical aid, vehicle sales and service locations, collision repair joints and even Walmarts.

This is what one of their trucker users – Mike Huber – said of the mobile phone app: “It’s a great idea. It’s super easy to use, with a down-to-earth approach.”

Virtual Reality

Now what if you took one of the hottest consumer technologies out there – virtual reality (VR) technology – and match it with the young age groups that were first to embrace it for gaming – but use it for training and education? It adds a whole new dimension and fun to book learning.

I’m certainly not the first to think of this, but it’s clearly being acted on.

Think of the potential for success here. Beyond enhancing online gaming, VR has captured the collective imagination of sports businesses, marketers, the tourism industry and more. Pro QBs use VR systems (a headset, smartphone and app) to get speed their training by getting extra reps without even touching a football field.

Trucker wannabes could be presented with a 3D scenario in which he or she is graded based on decisions. Do-over are quick and fun, when you don’t have to stay after, or re-study to re-take a test. VR has already been used along with gaming for training in the military.

Young age groups have grown up with VR for gaming, likely logging more hours online than some truckers spend on the road! This is why VR could be a great tool in the larger process of attracting and creating truckers using the tech that’s part of their lives.

The Road Ahead

It’s clear as day that technology is the key to addressing the driver shortage.  Mobile and VR play starring roles in intensifying efforts to recruit drivers from young age groups.  These are by no means the only ways to meet the challenge. So, stay tuned; we’ll be hitting this issue again.

Technology is bringing new visibility and efficiencies across the supply chain as well. Try Kuebix Free LTL Freight Rate Calculator or take a minute and learn more about Kuebix TMS

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