There isn't a shortage of truck drivers — they just don't want to drive for mega carriers anymore

Over the past year, photos of empty shelves have appeared on social media. They have been blamed on a lack of truck drivers.

There have been reports of a trucker shortage for a long time, but they have been picked up more widely during the Pandemic.

Some companies are increasing wages and giving huge sign-on bonuses to new truck drivers because they no longer want to work for them. The American Trucking Association's chief economist said in October that the US trucker shortage had reached an all-time high.

Some truck drivers as well as industry experts disagree with the fact that there is a shortage. There isn't a shortage of truck drivers, just a shift in where they work, according to an associate professor at Michigan State University.

He said that they don't want to drive for mega-carriers anymore.

Miller said that they have seen that what economists would call a reallocation of drivers. According to data compiled by Miller and viewed by Insider, 1.53 million Americans worked in the truck transportation industry in the first half of the 21st century.

Many drivers have become owner operators or started working for smaller carriers. The average size of US trucking establishments fell from 10 to 9.2 employees in the third quarter of 2021, according to the data he shared with Insider.

Some drivers say they are treated badly by mega-carriers who want to pay them peanuts and don't cover the hours they have to wait.

The number of drivers moving to short-haul freight was cited by Miller as one of the reasons for abandoning mega-carriers. He said that the shift in demand from manufacturing-related deliveries to consumer-oriented freight was partially to blame.

The move to short-haul freight is due to drivers wanting to avoid COVID-19 and the intensity of life on the road. To over-the-road drivers, trucking is just as much of a lifestyle as it is a profession: they have to eat at truck stops, sleep in their vehicles, and spend weeks away at a time.

I have a three-year-old daughter that I have watched grow up over video chat, and I spend more time video chatting with my family than I do.

Spot rates have soared during the pandemic

A combination of drivers moving to both smaller carriers and short-haul driving has helped create this very tight capacity and caused spot rates in the US to rise to unprecedented levels.

He said that people think that trucking capacity is flexible, but it really isn't because so many carriers are regionalized.

Miller said that some drivers quit their jobs at larger carriers in favor of buying their own truck and becoming an independent owner-operator to cash in on the high spot prices.

Miller said that rising prices for freight transport had had little impact on the soaring inflation in the US. A company's expenditure on truck transportation makes up between 3% and 6% of its revenues.

Miller said that people are seeing record ocean freight prices, record air freight prices, record truck transportation prices, and they want to blame that for the inflationary effects we are seeing.