Who’s to Blame for the Trucker Shortage?

Industry relies on inexperienced drivers and contractors who get saddled with debt, high expenses

By Lauren Weber

March 7, 2017 10:00 a.m. ET

Help wanted: America needs truck drivers. In 2015, American Trucking Associations estimated that for-hire trucking companies had nearly 50,000 fewer drivers than they needed. The shortage was less severe in 2016, but the trade group expects it to worsen in coming years.

As policy makers wring their hands over the shortage, an Ivy League sociologist who spent time as a long-haul driver says the deficit is largely the industry’s own doing. ... ATA largely blames the grueling demands of a job that puts workers on the road for long periods. But Steve Viscelli, a sociologist and fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Robert A. Fox Leadership Program, says the shortage is the product of an industry labor model that relies heavily on inexperienced drivers and independent contractors.

Mr. Viscelli, who worked as a truck driver for several months while researching his 2016 book, “The Big Rig: Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream,” says upward of 25% of long-haul truck drivers are independent contractors, also known as owner-operators. They are attracted by promises of being their own bosses, but the arrangement often saddles them with unsustainable debt and high expenses, he adds.
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Hanging over any discussion of the truck industry’s future is the specter of automation. Driverless vehicles will lead to significant job loss, says Mr. Viscelli, “but it’s further out in the future than most people think,” partly because of the web of local, state and federal regulations that guide trucking.

Write to Lauren Weber at lauren.weber@wsj.com