Fleets Pursue Qualified Drivers as Freight Grows, Rules Tighten

This story appears in the July 5 print edition of Transport Topics.

Seeking to capitalize on an ever-tighter market, many fleets are racing to sign up qualified drivers as freight demand rises and stiffer federal driver standards loom, experts said.

“We can still find drivers, but we have to search harder,” Steve Brantley, manager of driver resources for USA Truck, Van Buren, Ark., told Transport Topics. “There are more loads to be moved.”

“The market has become more competitive for both owner-operators and experienced drivers,” said Brooke Willey, vice president for human resources at CRST International. The company seeks drivers for 700 new trucks it will add by the end of 2011.

“The ability to expand our driver recruiting efforts and identify ways to attract drivers will be the key to that ultimate growth,” Willey said.

Bert Johnson, human resources director at Con-way Truckload, Joplin, Mo., agreed that it’s more difficult to find drivers.

“Our emphasis has been on hiring to meet normal driver turnover,” Johnson said.

So did Ron Massman, president of The Dependable Companies.

“Our biggest challenge these days is to find good, qualified drivers,” Massman said, citing a “very, very positive upturn in business.”

The recruiting drive embraces websites, video and newspaper advertising and also includes some other less-than-truckload fleets.

Con-way Freight has added about 900 drivers since March to keep pace with growth. Averitt Express  also said it is adding drivers.

FTR Associates recently estimated that fleets will fall 70,000 drivers short of hiring goals this quarter. Similarly, a survey by Transport Capital Partners found 60% of truckload fleets were experiencing a driver shortage.

“Several factors are playing into the driver recruiting shortage in the industry,” said CRST’s Willey, citing the federal Comprehensive Safety and Accountability program, or CSA, and capacity expansion in the industry as well as at CRST.

“[Carriers] may not say so, but they could be adding people that they think will pass the new criteria,” said Satish Jindel, president of SJ Consulting Group Inc., Sewickley, Pa., referring to the CSA program’s stiffer driver requirements. “People that may have passed a year ago now will be excluded. [Carriers] may want to get the people now instead of chase them afterwards,” Jindel said.

Norita Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, questioned the link between recruiting and growth.

“A huge hiring effort doesn’t necessarily mean there are loads to be hauled,” Taylor said. Freight has grown only “somewhat,” she said. “It certainly doesn’t cost carriers very much to hire in order to promise shippers that they have drivers available.”

High unemployment is both helping and hurting the driver picture.

Jace Isaacson, director of recruiting for Central Refrigerated Service, linked the interest in trucking to the 9.7% unemployment rate.

“All of these guys are getting into trucking because they need to make money and find a new career,” he said. “We felt that, with high unemployment, there would be a lot of people looking for work.”

Central hopes to step up new driver graduation to as much as 50 a week if freight demand keeps rising, he said.

Central typically puts 30 to 40 drivers a week through its training program, as does Con-way Truckload.

On the other hand, unemployment reduces the pool, Jindel said, because workers who haven’t exhausted their benefits may choose to stay home instead of driving.

Three other forces are at work to limit the driver pool, Jindel said.

One factor is that stepped-up highway programs put more construction workers on those jobs, which means fewer workers migrate to trucking than in the past when road building programs were slow.

Another constraint is uncertainty that economic growth in recent months could be sustained.

The other restriction is fleets choosing not to add equipment, which limits the need for drivers.

Among the fleets that have held the line on capacity additions is Celadon Group Inc., Indianapolis. “We’ve chosen to handle the increased business with the fleet at its current size,” said Stephen Russell, its chairman and CEO.

“During the recession, we didn’t cut the number of trucks,” Russell said. “We feel we did the right thing.”