COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
BUSINESS NEWS
MARCH 2022 • 23
Continued from Page 6
for experienced operators. The median pay for driv-
ers in 2020 was $47,130, or $22.66 per hour, accord-
ing to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
For 10 years, Jon Samson was executive director
of the Agriculture and Food Transporters Confer-
ence, a unit of the American Trucking Associations
that focuses on critical issues afecting commodities
and food.
Now vice president of conferences for the asso-
ciation, he said approximately 80% of all agricul-
tural products are transported via trucks. The rest is
moved primarily by rail or barge.
While the driver shortage is not new, Samson
said it accelerated in the early days of the pandemic
as states shut down businesses to slow COVID-199s
spread. Suddenly, long-haul truckers couldn9t even
ond a place to park and rest or shower as truck stops
and rest areas closed.
Vaccine mandates were another source of con-
sternation, Samson said. Though the Supreme Court
ultimately blocked the Biden administration9s vac-
cine requirements for companies with more than
100 employees, just the threat was enough to push
some truckers out of the industry or into retirement.
<We9ve been working extraordinarily hard to
either bring people back, or retain the people that
we currently have,= Samson said.
Drivers are also getting older. The median age of
over-the-road truckers is now 46. Samson said it is
imperative to recruit new blood, though federal law
prohibits CDL drivers younger than 21 from partic-
ipating in interstate commerce.
Instead of hiring drivers at 18, when they are
fresh out of high school, Samson said they lose
those orst three years before they reach 21, putting
the trucking industry at a competitive disadvantage
compared to other trades.
<It really is crucial, and a lot of these are rural
farm kids that we9re focused on bringing in as well,=
he said.
Jana Jarvis, president and CEO of the Oregon
Trucking Associations, said one way companies
are appealing to new drivers is by ofering higher
pay and beneots 4 hence the ove-ogure signing
bonuses.
There is also much more work available locally,
as e-commerce has changed how consumers shop,
Jarvis said. Instead of spending weeks at a time on
the road, drivers can now make local deliveries and
return home to their families every night.
<The navor of our industry has changed dramat-
ically over the last decade,= Jarvis said.
Calling all truckers
Willy Eriksen, president of the Western Pacioc
Truck School, said that during any given four-week
class period, recruiters from 16 trucking companies
will court students during their lunch break with
promises of a job once they get their CDL.
<This is the highest (demand) I9ve ever seen,=
Eriksen said. <It9s always been an in-demand job,
but nothing like this.=
GEORGE PLAVEN/CAPITAL PRESS
Jason Nord leans his head out the window while backing up during an exercise at the Western Pacific Truck School in Portland.
Founded in 1977, Western Pacioc Truck School
is a 160-hour program that combines classroom and
on-the-road training to get drivers ready for their
CDL test. The school has two locations, in north-
east Portland and in Centralia, Washington.
About half of all students now are sponsored by
companies that pay the $6,000 tuition to get more
drivers, Eriksen said.
<All of a sudden, companies are realizing
there9s just nobody out there walking around with a
CDL,= Eriksen said. <Companies are now scraping
trying to ond drivers. They9re ofering big bonuses,
and things I9ve never seen in the industry before.=
Alex Paliy, 23, graduated from the school in
December. Three days later, he passed his CDL test
and got a driving job with React Logistics, a small
carrier based in Troutdale.
Paliy, whose background is in computer science
and information technology, said he was attracted
to trucking by the pay. He has already made two
cross-country trips to Florida, hauling everything
from pallets of soy protein to Duracell batteries.
There9s more to the snarled supply chain than
just a driver shortage, Paliy said.
In his few months on the job, he said he has also
seen understafed distribution centers and ware-
houses with lines of trucks waiting hours to load
and unload, indicating labor shortages in other
links of the supply chain, too.
<It9s such a complicated industry with many
branches of work,= Paliy said. <It9s not just drivers.
You have brokers, you have dispatchers, you have
warehouses, you have ports, you have cross-docks
and distribution centers. All of that ties in together.=
Eriksen said the school is booked several
months in advance as companies escalate their push
to hire drivers.
<In four weeks, you have a career,= he said.
<You could go to college for four years and not be
able to make the same money you can driving a
truck.=
Pilot program
In addition to higher pay, legislation included
in the $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure package
could pave the way for younger drivers to join the
industry.
The Drive Safe Act establishes a two-step pilot
apprenticeship program for drivers 18 to 20 years
old to participate in interstate commerce. Partici-
pants must complete 400 hours of additional train-
ing, including 240 hours supervised by an experi-
enced driver.
The program also requires trucks to be otted
with technology including active braking collision
mitigation systems, forward-facing event recording
cameras, speed limiters set at 65 mph or lower and
automatic or automatic-manual transmissions.
<It has a signiocant amount of both technol-
ogy requirements on the trailer itself, and a signif-
icant amount of training for the younger driver 4
including someone who9s also going to be sitting
next to them in the cab,= said Samson, of the Amer-
ican Trucking Associations.
He said the program will be overseen by the
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and
will be running in the near future.
Jarvis, of the state trucking association, said she
hopes Oregon carriers will consider participating to
oll some of the program9s 3,000 available slots.
<It9s a heavy onancial investment on the part
of trucking companies to take two drivers on one
delivery, but it was something our industry was
very interested in supporting,= Jarvis said. <It9s an
essential job.=
Not everyone is on board with the program.
Opponents argue teenage drivers pose a higher risk
of crashing, and the new law would do nothing to
retain drivers who become burned out due to gruel-
ing schedules and long stretches of time away from
home.
To recruit more drivers, the Idaho Trucking
Association has a new $175,000 truck simulator
that it takes to high schools around the state. The
idea is to get students thinking about a career as a
truck driver. The orst stop was in January at Mid-
dleton High School.
<The hands-on experience may ease some con-
cerns and create excitement for students looking
for career options,= said Allen Hodges, the associ-
ation9s president and CEO. <If the driver shortage
continues, this will (prevent) everyone from getting
the goods they want in a timely fashion.=
Until the supply chain regains its footing, Sam-
son said agricultural commodities risk having a
shorter shelf life and higher production costs.
<It9s a complicated web, but none of it ends up
being a positive for the farmer or the consumer,=
he said.