Fleets Turn Trucking Shows Into Driver Job Fairs

This story appears in the April 22 print edition of Transport Topics.

MONTREAL — Truck shows used to be primarily for fleets to view and buy new equipment. But these days, many carriers are becoming exhibitors and the commodity they’re in the market for is drivers.

Evidence of the growing driver shortage was on full display at Expocam earlier this month, where a wide variety of haulers were recruiting.

Of more than a dozen fleets interviewed by Transport Topics at the biennial show here April 11-13, all but one indicated there were openings.

“This is the first time we have been at a show in five years,” said Colette Disbrowe, manager of driver recruiting for the TransX Group of Cos. “We need drivers, and our recruiting team felt it was time to try it again.”

Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, TransX ranks No. 50 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire fleets.

Most urgently, TransX was seeking at least 10 Montreal-based driver teams for longhaul, cross-border moves, said Disbrowe, adding that the company expects to soon need many more drivers for new business between Canada and California.

There were more than 10 carriers grouped in a recruitment pavilion, with about an equal number scattered throughout the rest of the show floor. All fleets — including those headquartered in the United States — staffed French-speaking recruiters; most had English-speaking representatives available.

At the booth of Transport Bourassa Inc., most of the Quebec-based company’s literature was in French. However, knowledge of English was a critical skill for job seekers, said Jacynthe Séguin, the fleet’s human resources coordinator.

The less-than-truckload fleet with about 200 drivers was looking to add at least five, with some potentially traveling as far south into the United States as Georgia. It was also filling dispatcher positions based in the home province but requiring constant interaction with drivers throughout the United States who may speak only English.

A recent Canadian study found the nation could experience a shortage of at least 25,000 to 33,000 for-hire drivers by 2020. Earlier this month, the Canadian Trucking Alliance launched Drivershortage.ca, an online resource dedicated to the driver shortage.

For Landstar Transportation Logistics, the main unit of Jacksonville, Fla.-based Landstar System, one of the most frequent questions it had to answer had nothing to do with the United States, said recruiting director Kurt Erickson.

“They want to know if we can run intraprovince,” said Erickson, noting the answer is “yes.”

Landstar ranks No. 9 on the for-hire TT 100 and is the fifth-largest truckload firm. It exclusively uses owner-operators, which it refers to as business capacity owners.

Despite being located far from the recruiting pavilion, the company had a steady stream of visitors, some of whom viewed a listing of available loads on a computer set up at the booth.

Expocam is “a way to get in front of a lot of people in a short amount of time,” Erickson said.

A short distance away, Les Poszko, who is bilingual, was speaking with owner-operators at the booth for Quality Carriers, the largest unit of Quality Distribution Inc., No. 38 on the for-hire TT 100 and the second-largest tank truck fleet.

Poszko, a driver trainer for Quality, which is headquartered in Tampa, Fla., estimated the company could put as many as 20 truckers on the road quickly. But his goal for the show was tempered by a number of factors.

First, owner-operators need at least one year of experience before joining Quality, and must already be enrolled in the Free and Secure Trade program.

In addition, the shipping of hazardous materials requires additional credentials that can be tough to obtain.

Poszko said the reward his company could offer the few that might meet all of those requirements was very simple — “they will get paid well,” including the possibility of $5,000 sign-on bonuses.

Back over in the recruitment pavilion, an Ontario-based fleet, the Erb Group of Cos., was hoping to find long-haul drivers. But Mike Bitzer, corporate driver recruiter, told TT that truck shows are about brand building as much as filling open jobs.

“It can be as simple as a pen,” Bitzer said as passersby grabbed free company-branded pens before quickly moving on. Sometime in the future, that pen could lead to a qualified driver filling one of the company’s 700 trucks, he said.

Trans-West Logistics Inc.’s recruiting efforts to find as many as 15 teams at Expocam included a booth in the recruiting pavilion and another on the central show floor as it seeks drivers mostly for moves between Toronto and California, company officials said.

The company, which has offices in Quebec and Ontario, was also hoping to add driver trainers.

Groupe Robert, Groupe Morneau, SLH Transport Inc. and LFL Transport were among the other fleets that said they had current openings.

C.H. Express Inc. was the only company to tell TT it was not filling current positions. Yet Stéphanie Morissette, human resources coordinator for the Quebec-based company, said it staffed a booth in the pavilion because “we are always looking for the right drivers, even if it is for next time.”