TRUCKER'S STORIES: DOES CANADA HAVE SUCH AN ACUTE SHORTAGE OF TRUCK DRIVERS?

According to statistics, fleet driver turnover can be as much as 50-100% per year. This means that a truck driver stays with the moving company for only 12-24 months on average.

Several reasons could help explain the driver shortage.

The primary cause is probably the very tough lifestyle an over-the-road trucker leads. The job demands about 20 hours a day upward of 300 days annually, which means hanging out with your friends every night will not be possible. Quite similar to being in the military or working on an oil rig, for example, but in those situations, you are often with the same group of people for a while and aren’t alone most of the day. The job will put you in different places at all times and won’t stay in any given place for very long. On the other hand, if your truck isn’t moving, you’re not making any money. Loneliness is a large factor you’ll have to embrace as a truck driver.

Driving a truck isn’t easy. It’s tough to gain the experience required to properly back up a trailer into a loading dock or pull the trailer through tight spaces without causing any accidents. Learning to shift the trucks can also be a challenge, even though many fleets are buying trucks with automated transmissions to curb this problem. The job also requires one to keep their eyes on the road for hours every day despite the fact that driving might wear their mind and body. The only way to take a break is to pull off the road, but you’re under incredible pressure to arrive at your destination on time. You can be forced to drive while tired. Trucking is not like many other jobs where taking a quick break can be done anytime you need.

In order to drive a truck, one requires specialized training to get a CDL (Commercial Driver’s License). The trucking company can cater for the training, but if you pay for it on yourself, it might cost you $5000 and a couple of weeks. Most of the moving companies only take people whose driving records are clean, which filters out quite a few people, and to begin with, fewer young people are getting driver’s licenses these days due to various factors.

These days, more young people are going to college. Investing several years and many thousands of dollars getting a degree might make them more reluctant to undergo substantial additional training for a job that they could have gotten without the need of going to college, even though plenty of people who have acquired degrees end up taking jobs that don’t need a diploma after they graduate.

The career offers very little opportunity for promotion. Although a truck driver with 30 years of experience might be earning more money, at the end of the day he or she is still behind a truck wheel just like on his/her first day.

Also, if I were taking trucking into consideration as a career, the potential for driverless trucks to replace my job in a few years would be a matter of concern.

This combined with a thriving economy and higher demand for truck shipments and you get an increasing shortage. As stated in the article, this problem is easy to fix by training more drivers and giving them better wages. Turnover might never be extremely low, but it can be brought down quite a bit by better pay.

Moving companies in Toronto that boast good pay and conditions and fair treatment for their employees do not even have to advertise while recruiting because their actions will do the trick. Truck driving is not an easy job. It requires being away from home for extended periods of time, basically living to work, and is not suitable for everyone. Therefore, moving companies need to make it worth their while in order to find and retain the limited amount of qualified and experienced drivers.

Working in the trucking industry is no easy task. You are required to drive alone for long hours a day throughout the week with products of high value in your trailer that needs to reach a destined place at a particular time. Truck drivers, however, do not always receive their well-deserved transparency from moving companies. Being a truck driver is already a tough and demanding job, therefore, being honest and working efficiently with them is crucial for them to succeed and enjoy their jobs.

With us, Miracle Movers Toronto, drivers love their job. When a truck driver is content with his wage and working hours, he can genuinely enjoy his work and feel confident about the days to come.