Trucker Shortage Means Companies, Consumers Paying More To Ship
WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A trucker shortage across the state, and the country, is bringing some unwanted changes to consumers.
According to the American Trucking Association, there's a shortage of 50,000 truck drivers nationally. It's increasing shipping costs not just to businesses, but to consumers, too.
Jesica Robinson is hauling her way into a new career, and a change of scenery. Robinson says her aspiration to become a truck driver came easy.
"I'm always traveling," she said.
She's been training at the Western Truck School in West Sacramento for the past eight weeks, along with a few other truck drivers in the making.
"It's a good switch, it's relaxing sometimes too, it also holds a lot of responsibility," said Andrew Machado, another aspiring truck driver.
And truck driving is in high demand. Truck schools, even large-scale businesses say they're hurting for drivers.
"The market doesn't have enough new drivers coming in to replace the drivers that are retiring or moving on out of the industry," said Mike Nord, president of Western Truck School.
He says he started noticing a decline in the number of students about a year and a half ago.
"Our student class size would go from as high as 25 students per month and now it could be six or eight per month," Nord added.
Nord says younger people are choosing different career paths, and the ones who do enter the trucking industry are in their mid-30s. Nord says the average age used to be 21.
The shortage is driving up shipping costs across the nation. Amazon's chief financial officer says that's one reason the company increased its Prime membership by $20 earlier this month.
Trucking experts say the shortage will only get worse for businesses and consumers. The California Trucking Association says it's getting ready to roll out a new task force to entice more people to get behind the wheel.
"We are gonna start looking at job fairs throughout the state," said Eric Sauer, senior vice president of the association.
The CTA estimates in the next decade, California will have a shortage of 70,000 truck drivers, and 1 million nationwide.
