Inflation Impacts Already High Truck Driver Turnover Rate

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) — It’s commonly reported that America’s ten point four trillion dollar trucking industry is facing a driver shortage, but according to Sharae Moore of SHE trucking, the real issue is driver retention.

“The CDL training at mega carriers, which are your big companies that have over a hundred trucks, they are not properly training the drivers,” said Moore.

Moore also said that trucker pay is high for an industry that does not require a degree, but not high enough to keep up with inflation.

“I’d have made a thousand dollars eight years ago, and drivers are coming in and making like fifteen hundred, but back when I started, your rent was like 400 dollars, but now, my rent is like thirteen hundred,” Moore added.

According to Bob Poole of Network Transport, the relationship between inflation and the transportation industry is a vicious cycle. Trucker shortages and high turnover rates increase inflation, and inflation increases the price of materials needed to become a trucker, making shortages and turnover rates even worse.

“It comes back to affect everyone. I mean, look at what you’re paying for groceries and at the restaurant. It truly affects everything that’s delivered,” said Poole.

Poole said that he believes there is a driver shortage, and another factor impacting the hiring pool are drug screening regulations that went into effect last year.

“Consistently and incrementally, every month it’s about two thousand drivers can’t get clearance and are permanently banned from becoming drivers in the future,” Poole said.

According to the American Trucking Association, the driver turnover rate is consistently over 90 percent.