Despite the claim of a driver shortage due to the pandemic, professor Jason Miller claims that they just don’t want to drive for mega carriers anymore. With many claiming that the mega carriers treat them poorly and pay them peanuts, some are becoming owner operators themselves or going to work for smaller carriers.  Miller goes on to share BLD data “which shows that the average size of US trucking establishments plummeted from 10.6 employees at the end of 2019 to 9.4 employees in the third quarter of 2021..   Read more…

Though preliminary numbers might change in the next two months, a two year streak of trucking employment growth has come to an end, “perhaps indicating the economy hitting the brakes after unprecedented consumer demand.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 5,000 trucking jobs were lost in March, which “marks the first month-to-month decrease since April 2020, when the start of the pandemic wiped out nearly 80,000 trucking jobs.”  Read more…

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…

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…