'It's Like A Prison, It's Not A Job.' Global Trucker Shortage Worsens

[mahatmakanejeeves]

‘It’s Like A Prison, It’s Not A Job.’ Global Trucker Shortage Worsens

Truckers are fed up, quitting amid a global shortage

By Raphael Orlove
Today 10:51AM

It’s hard to wrap your head around the entire scope of how Covid has hit the world economy, but it’s not enough to look at supply shortages alone. Truck drivers are getting screwed, too. All that and more in The Morning Shift for August 30, 2021.

1st Gear: The Driver Shortage Is Only Getting Worse In Covid

Truck drivers are getting caught up in the middle of things during Covid, as the Financial Times explains in a new report:

Aliaksandr Matsiash, a Belarusian exile, joined Lithuanian trucking group Baltic Transline in May. But after two weeks of training, followed by 13 weeks living in a truck based in the Netherlands — all for a mere €2,470 — the 30-year-old quit.

“It’s not a normal life for a human,” he said. “It’s like a prison, it’s not a job. You do it like a zombie.”

Analysts say a global shortage of truck drivers has persisted since the middle of the 2000s. But Matsiash’s case illustrates the human dimension of a deteriorating global driver shortage that has tipped into a crisis only recently visible to the wider public.

At odds here is that truckers are being asked to shoulder greater risk, at worse pay, in worse conditions. And this is in an industry well aware that there is a shortage of drivers, as the FT lays out:

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‘It’s not a normal life’: truck drivers warn of burnout as global shortage bites

Surging demand for goods during the pandemic has increased volumes for hauliers to carry

Harry Dempsey and Jyoti Mann in London and Steff Chavez in Chicago AUGUST 30 2021

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In the UK, supermarket shelves are missing goods, McDonald’s restaurants ran out of milkshakes this week and builders cannot access supplies, while iron ore struggles to reach Australian ports for export.

The potential consequences are serious. André LeBlanc, vice-president of operations at Petroleum Marketing Group, a fuel distributor based in Virginia, US, said petrol stations that it supplied had run out of some products about 1,200 times since mid-June because of driver shortages.

“You don’t get your toilet tissues and your eggs, that’s one thing. Gasoline stops — it shuts everything down,” he said.

The transport sector’s labour issues have built up over time as multinational companies have driven down supply chain costs. At the same time, the trucking workforce in developed nations has aged — the average truck driver in the UK is 55 — while more jobs have become computer-based.

Bob Costello, chief economist at American Trucking Associations, said the number of drivers in general freight in the US had dropped to 430,000, down from 465,000 people at the start of 2020. “The driver shortage in the US is getting even worse; it is as bad as it has ever been,” he added{.}

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[msongs]

1. here I thought supply and demand means higher pay in a shortage of drivers nt