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The Next Generation of Drivers

By Marvin Shefsky

Where is the next generation of drivers going to come from?

That's the $64,000 question ($3.6 million, adjusted for inflation) the trucking industry has been asking itself for several years. With the industry already experiencing a national shortage of 20,000 long-haul drivers -- a number that is projected to grow to well over 100,000 during the next decade according to the American Trucking Associations -- it's a serious problem that's only going to get worse if current demographic trends hold steady.

As Kim Richardson points out in this month's cover story (see the adjoining "Perfect Storm"), the situation is further complicated by an aging driver workforce, with many veterans of the road looking forward to driving off into the sunset and into retirement in the not-so-distant future.

In the past, the driver pool was replenished by young drivers, many of them the sons and, in some cases, daughters of the retiring drivers. Driving over-the-road was considered a "tradition" in many trucking families, something that was "in your blood," something a driver learned to love at an early age from their father, a love they in turn passed on to their own kids.

The tradition of the "trucking family," however, may be nearing the end of the line if recent empirical and anecdotal evidence is any indication. Study after study shows that more young people than ever are opting for college or are pursuing more attractive career paths that don't take them away from family and friends for days or weeks at a time, opportunities that simply weren't available to them in such numbers in years past. As for the anecdotal evidence, we spoke to dozens of veteran drivers at this year's Mid-America Trucking Show and the vast majority of them said they wouldn't want their own kids to grow up to be truckers.

So the question remains: Where is the next generation of over-the-road professionals going to come from?

Immigrants, ex-military and women are expected to fill some of the gap. More recently, a huge pool of potential drivers -- aging baby boomers looking for a second career -- has emerged as a viable recruiting target. As ATA President and CEO Bill Graves noted earlier this year in announcing an alliance with the American Association of Retired People (AARP), the over-50 set tends to have the judgment skills, strong work ethic and sense of responsibility that carriers look for in their drivers and owner-operators. For more, read the article " New Source of Drivers: Aging Baby Boomers" elsewhere in this issue of Inside Trucking.

Can aging baby boomers successfully make the jump from, say, a 9-to-5 office or factory environment to a life on the road? Perhaps the better question is, Will baby boomers want to make the jump? That remains to be seen.

"A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in ... and how many want out."

-- Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britian