AUTOMATION WON’T HARM LOGISTICS JOBS

Most experts believe that despite the rapid rise in automation, jobs will largely remain in the warehousing and logistics industries. While many e-commerce giants, including Amazon and Chewy, have begun to utilize automation to improve efficiency, their warehouses will continue to create thousands of jobs for the workforce.  While automation helps with not having to rely on any one single person, there will be a continued need to have the right balance between people and machines for companies to remain fecund.   Read more..

STATE OF SELF-DRIVING VEHICLES

Though we didn’t start experimenting with self-driving vehicles until the 2000’s, we’ve created incredible strides with the hardware in the last 15 years, but the early estimate of 2025 as when most new vehicles would drive themselves won’t become a reality. There are still harder issues being tackled, including the fact that the vehicles’ systems don’t work 100% of the time.  Though almost all “long haul trucker jobs would be eliminated,” and “the effects would be felt across the country as truckers can account for significant income to several rural areas,” this bleak future for truck drivers is still many years away.    Read more…

IT’S A PAY SHORTAGE, NOT A TRUCKER SHORTAGE

With long stretches away from home and family already making truck driving jobs less than desirable, low pay has compounded the trucker shortage even further.  As drivers around the country “quit their jobs en masse, the trucking industry needs an estimated 80,000 more drivers to operate optimally. That’s a historic high, according to the American Trucking Associations.” Many believe that the only way to fix this issue, as with many other industries across the pandemic-stricken economy, is to re-evaluate wages and benefits for these applicants.    Read more…

NEW LOGISTICS FACILITY COMING TO RICHMOND

New jobs are coming to Virginia as A. Duie Pyle, a large trucking, warehousing logistics company based in Pennsylvania, is opening multiple new locations in Richmond, Roanoke and Manasses. A. Duie Pyle “provides transportation and distribution services mainly under a ‘less-than-truckload,’ or LTL, business model, shipping from 27 service centers and 16 warehouse facilities.”  Read more…

DIESEL PRICES TAKING ITS TOLL ON TRUCKING INDUSTRY

With fuel being one of the main things drivers can’t control in the trucking industry, the new reality has some diesel reserve tanks going from $23,000 to fill, to more than $47,500, and that doesn’t even include what drivers will have to pay while on the road. With it already being hard enough to find new drivers, the new rise in diesel prices is hampering the industry like never before. Read more…

TRUCKING INDUSTRY FORCED TO GET CREATIVE

With the truck industry being impacted even before the pandemic began due to “shortages of trained drivers, high turnover rates, and an aging workforce,” and now totalling over 80,000 unfilled driver jobs nationwide, the industry has been forced to think outside the box when it comes to continuing to operate. One example of getting creative is that of companies that are “partnering with local private career education colleges to tap into new talent that’s being trained specifically for careers in trucking.”  Read more…

IMPACT OF AUTOMATION ON LONG-HAUL TRUCKING

A new study out of the University of Michigan and Carnegie Melon has found that “up to 94% of operator hours may be impacted if automated trucking technology improves to operate in all weather conditions across the continental United States.” The study goes on to say that the impact may not happen all at once, especially because the technology is still having trouble in inclement weather, and, at first, only “10% of the operator hours will be affected.”  Read more…

LOGISTIC JOBS COMING TO VIRGINIA

200 new jobs are coming to Norfolk Virginia thanks to Massachusetts-based logistics company RoadOne. The company plans to build a 340,000 square foot distribution and fulfillment center only six miles from the Port of Virginia’s terminals. This will be the fourth new transload facility that RoadOne has added in the last year and a half. The center “is set to be completed by August and will have 80 dock doors for loading and unloading trucks and 800 trailer parking spots.”  Read more…

OPPORTUNITIES OPENING IN FASHION’S SUPPLY CHAIN AND LOGISTICS

With countless senior fashion executives prioritizing strengthening relationships with suppliers, and “a growing number of fashion brands ramping up the development of product passports,” opportunities in fashion’s supply chain and logistics are becoming more readily available, not to mention popular. This is especially positive in light that “fashion’s supply chain has faced a tumultuous few years, with disruptions caused by global labour shortages, regulatory changes and geopolitics.” Read more…

TRUCK TRANSPORTATION SECTOR CONTINUES TO GROW

While data might be open to interpretation, the overall strength of the truck transportation sector continues to increase. Since the pandemic nadir employment levels of April 2020, the monthly employment report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been mostly on the up-swing. In fact, “the truck transportation sector reported by the BLS has added jobs for 22 consecutive months.” Read more…