The research arm of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, the OOIDA Foundation, traces the roots of high driver turnover in U.S. trucking -- particularly within the long-haul truckload sector -- to deregulation in the 1980s. It brought in thousands of new motor carriers, and increased competition within the market.
“This competitive landscape effectively eliminated companies’ ability to raise pay significantly without losing business, embedding high turnover as a standard business strategy,” OOIDA noted in its one-page summary of the new research around turnover, providing additional data it hopes will refute a long-held stance within trucking that a truck driver shortage exists.
The research offers recommations for several areas with potential for improvement, including but not limited to:
Titled “The Churn: A Brief Look at the Roots of High Driver Turnover in U.S. Trucking,” the full research report takes on what OOIDA considers a dangerous, false narrative of a driver shortage that undercuts pay and hinders healthy industry growth.
“People have touched on this issue multiple times in the past,” said Charles Sperry, a research analyst with the OOIDA Foundation. The goal with this research, however, was to give “a good overview of the subject more broadly. We’ve talked about specific issues, but we wanted to have something that really touched on everything all in one place; something that you could present to somebody who is new to the issue and say, ‘All right, here we go from point A to point B, and let’s just touch on everything and get you educated on the subject all at once.'”
As has been argued by OOIDA and others about the driver shortage narrative in past, a typical labor shortage would result in higher wages and improved conditions to attract more talent. In trucking, however, “these normal market corrections fail to materialize, primarily due to deeply embedded structural and economic factors,” the research noted.
[Related: Trucking's driver shortage assertions 'spurious': New compensation report on safety, retention]
