Comments on: There’s No Shortage, Just A Price You Don’t Like

By: Ming Jack Po

Ming Jack Po — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:14:59 +0000

I absolutely agree with the point made here. Very often, a shortage of labor is actually the result of firms not willing to adjust their labor costs to “market rates”. I would even suggest that the current shortage of “IT workers” in the states is the result of similar circumstances.

By: HTRN

HTRN — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:36:33 +0000

A similar situation exists in manufacturing in NJ. You constantly here about Shop owners bemoaning the fact that they can't good skilled machinists, but these same asshats want to pay wages to work long(60 hours or more a week) hours in fithy conditions with a "stopwatch" mentality, that are equaled by your local Home Depot.

That's right - they want to pay unskilled wages, for a job where skills take years(or even decades) to develop.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:04:48 +0000

Thanks to companies exploiting the H2B visas, there are a ton of eastern european drivers now. And union drivers are such a small percentage of drivers they is no way they can regulate or control anything in trucking anymore.

You can't have a strong trucking industry with a weak economy, it's just not possible. And with the downturn in the economy, means less freight on the road.

The "Driver shortage" is a complete sham and it's only goal is to drive down wages.

The companies have the upper hand because if the truck doesn't move (because of lower freight volumns) the driver doesn't get paid. If he gets sick of not being paid, or not being paid enough, he quits and moves on.

By: skh.pcola

skh.pcola — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:27:31 +0000

The “trucker’s union” does not cover coast-to-coast over-the-road (OTR) drivers…its members are short-haul and less-than-truckload (LTL) drivers. I drove a truck for several years, then bought one. The OTR long-haul business is best left (or _was_, back around 2000 and before) to large companies that can hedge fuel costs and benefit from other economies of scale and scope. I leased my truck briefly to Landstar Inway, and they routinely offered loads that would barely cover my costs. There isn’t a chance in hell that I would either recommend this line of work or get back into it. I went months without going home and without seeing anybody who I knew. Trucking’s problems are self-inflicted, and it will take drastically higher pay rates to fix them.

By: Rocky Mountain

Rocky Mountain — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:23:49 +0000

If the restrictions on Mexican trucks are lifted, will the next step be Mexican truckers filling the job vacuum cited by the transportation industry? For the truck companies this would be an attractive economic alternative and there would be a pool of (partially) trained drivers. I know that HB 177 (is that right?) is geared towards hiring hi-tech workers from overseas but there might be some way to tweak that to include Latino truckers.

By: dearieme

dearieme — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:02:16 +0000

Don’t worry, this is yet another problem that will be solved by The Greater Depression.

By: th

th — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:56:46 +0000

They may actually be correct in calling this a shortage (although not in the way they mean).

I don't know the facts of the situation, but the trucker's union is a legalized cartel that limits supply and drives up price. It is possible that there is an actual shortage caused by regulations to limit the supply of licensed truck drivers.