1
00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:07,200
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

2
00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:12,960
Speaker 2: Late this past summer, Bloomberg retail reporter Jaywon Kang flew

3
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:16,840
Speaker 2: to Anchorage, Alaska, got in a truck and headed south

4
00:00:17,079 --> 00:00:17,880
Speaker 2: toward Kenai.

5
00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:23,720
Speaker 1: You're surrounded by these really majestic mountains, and it was summer,

6
00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:26,599
Speaker 1: but you could still kind of see like snow on

7
00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:29,319
Speaker 1: the tip of the mountains. It was sort of the

8
00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:33,920
Speaker 1: calm before the storm, because you know, a few months

9
00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:37,680
Speaker 1: after that trip, the weather would have started getting pretty harsh.

10
00:00:38,120 --> 00:00:40,200
Speaker 3: Yes, hair will turn into pig cheeks of mines.

11
00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:44,239
Speaker 2: Jaywan was riding Shaka and the driver's seat next to

12
00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:46,720
Speaker 2: her there was a trucker named Leslie Scott.

13
00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:48,040
Speaker 3: Do you see those mountains.

14
00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:52,080
Speaker 4: It's pretty mellow right now, but sometimes it could be

15
00:00:52,159 --> 00:00:53,000
Speaker 4: pretty treacherous.

16
00:00:53,440 --> 00:00:56,720
Speaker 2: Leslie has been driving trucks for nearly a decade. For

17
00:00:56,760 --> 00:01:01,360
Speaker 2: the past few years, she's driven with a partner, Michelle Saliki.

18
00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:05,600
Speaker 2: They call themselves Belma and Luise. They even have a

19
00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:06,920
Speaker 2: shared TikTok account.

20
00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:12,080
Speaker 3: Okay, Michelle making video does a breakfast good I'd go

21
00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:16,240
Speaker 3: there are you? Even though Lesslie makes me walk a mile.

22
00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:21,000
Speaker 2: Leslie and Michelle don't fit the typical truck driver profile.

23
00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:24,160
Speaker 2: More than ninety percent of truck drivers in the US

24
00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:27,080
Speaker 2: are met, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

25
00:01:27,160 --> 00:01:29,320
Speaker 3: A lot of drivers still will say, oh, are you

26
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:32,920
Speaker 3: driving with your husband? They're shocked to the Seer team

27
00:01:32,959 --> 00:01:35,000
Speaker 3: women out here, especially.

28
00:01:34,760 --> 00:01:39,640
Speaker 2: Right Leslie is fifty eight, Michelle is sixty nine. The

29
00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:42,240
Speaker 2: median age for a truck driver in the US is

30
00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:47,120
Speaker 2: about forty five. Leslie and Michelle drive for Walmart, and

31
00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,280
Speaker 2: right now the company is making an effort to recruit

32
00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:54,560
Speaker 2: more drivers because the trucking industry is at a critical

33
00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:58,640
Speaker 2: juncture and the decisions its biggest players make now could

34
00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:02,480
Speaker 2: affect their ability to meet the increasingly insatiable demand of

35
00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:04,640
Speaker 2: American shoppers in the years to come.

36
00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:09,520
Speaker 1: The current workforce a lot of people will probably start

37
00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:13,120
Speaker 1: retiring within the next ten years or so roughly, and

38
00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:17,000
Speaker 1: so the big question is do we have enough people

39
00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:20,200
Speaker 1: who can replace those people who are going to be

40
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:21,560
Speaker 1: leaving the workforce.

41
00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:25,200
Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from

42
00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:29,200
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News Today on the show, the US trucking industry

43
00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:35,680
Speaker 2: at a crossroads. An aging workforce, chronically high turnover, long hours,

44
00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:40,480
Speaker 2: and inconsistent pay. How Walmart is trying to change trucking

45
00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:44,000
Speaker 2: to appeal to people who might not otherwise find themselves

46
00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:50,639
Speaker 2: behind the wheel. If you've ordered anything to be delivered

47
00:02:50,639 --> 00:02:53,720
Speaker 2: this holiday season, or even bought something in a store,

48
00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:56,959
Speaker 2: there's a good chance it got to your doorstep or

49
00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:00,280
Speaker 2: onto those shelves because of a truck driver.

50
00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:04,840
Speaker 1: The job of being a truck driver is really important

51
00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:07,960
Speaker 1: in this country. I mean, you know, it's estimated that

52
00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:12,600
Speaker 1: about seventy percent of freight is handled by commercial truck drivers.

53
00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:16,359
Speaker 2: According to the shipping firm Pitney Boats, eleven and a

54
00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:19,160
Speaker 2: half billion parcels were shipped in the US back in

55
00:03:19,160 --> 00:03:23,880
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. By twenty twenty four, that had nearly doubled

56
00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:27,880
Speaker 2: to more than twenty two billion parcels. And moving all

57
00:03:27,919 --> 00:03:30,760
Speaker 2: those packages across the country isn't easy.

58
00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:35,240
Speaker 1: It's a really tough job. I mean, generally speaking, you're

59
00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:40,880
Speaker 1: spending hours every day driving. You're spending days away from

60
00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:44,720
Speaker 1: your loved ones, sometimes spending weeks away from your home.

61
00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:48,440
Speaker 1: Depending on who you work for, you might be asked

62
00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:52,040
Speaker 1: to help unload and load all the goods in that truck.

63
00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:53,559
Speaker 1: So that's physically demanding.

64
00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:55,680
Speaker 5: It's one of the hottest jobs I've evid done in

65
00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:56,280
Speaker 5: my life.

66
00:03:56,480 --> 00:04:00,560
Speaker 2: That's Dean Krok. Today he works as an animals at

67
00:04:00,600 --> 00:04:04,440
Speaker 2: DAT Freight and Analytics, but before that he spent years

68
00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:07,440
Speaker 2: as a driver in Australia before moving to the US

69
00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:08,520
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight.

70
00:04:08,760 --> 00:04:10,880
Speaker 5: You've got to be able to handle being on your own,

71
00:04:11,200 --> 00:04:13,880
Speaker 5: so there's the mental aspect of it, and as you

72
00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:18,760
Speaker 5: get older, you become less tolerant to the extreme cold

73
00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:20,680
Speaker 5: or the extreme physical activity.

74
00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:24,599
Speaker 2: And the trucking industry can be volatile. It's prone to

75
00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:28,880
Speaker 2: booms and busts. One of the booms came during the pandemic.

76
00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:32,719
Speaker 2: Online sales shot up and the number of trucking carriers

77
00:04:32,800 --> 00:04:33,840
Speaker 2: rose to fill that.

78
00:04:33,839 --> 00:04:36,920
Speaker 5: Need, and then demand fell away, so those trucks had

79
00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:39,360
Speaker 5: to do something. I created this over supply of trucks

80
00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:42,919
Speaker 5: on the road and they competed for less freight and

81
00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:44,360
Speaker 5: it drove freight rates down.

82
00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:48,200
Speaker 2: Dean says, we've been in a freight recession for the

83
00:04:48,279 --> 00:04:50,760
Speaker 2: last three to four years.

84
00:04:50,440 --> 00:04:53,320
Speaker 5: And now we're starting to see bankruptcy start to rise

85
00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:58,880
Speaker 5: and turnover levels start to increase, driver pay levels of

86
00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:03,120
Speaker 5: starting to decline, so we're at the bottom of the market.

87
00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:06,640
Speaker 6: There's a lot of people who operate this when it's

88
00:05:06,760 --> 00:05:09,760
Speaker 6: economically viable, and otherwise they'll just park it and do

89
00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:10,400
Speaker 6: something else.

90
00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:14,640
Speaker 2: Chris Kaplis runs the Center for Transportation and Logistics at

91
00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:18,280
Speaker 2: MIT and founded MIT's Freight Lab, which.

92
00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:23,719
Speaker 6: Looks specifically how companies, shippers, truckers, transportation providers, carriers, and

93
00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:25,040
Speaker 6: brokers can all work together.

94
00:05:25,440 --> 00:05:29,240
Speaker 2: Chris says that for all these industry players, driver retention

95
00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:30,880
Speaker 2: is a big issue.

96
00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:34,240
Speaker 6: Turnover is pretty high. Sometimes for a lot of carriers

97
00:05:34,279 --> 00:05:37,440
Speaker 6: it's one hundred percent. Doesn't mean that every driver leaves,

98
00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:40,120
Speaker 6: but you have some that leave in much shorter periods

99
00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:40,520
Speaker 6: of time.

100
00:05:40,960 --> 00:05:43,400
Speaker 2: That means you might be going through multiple drivers in

101
00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:48,400
Speaker 2: one position, even if others stay on. That's expensive for carriers.

102
00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:51,720
Speaker 2: Chris says one reason for the high turnover is how

103
00:05:51,839 --> 00:05:53,080
Speaker 2: drivers are paid.

104
00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:57,400
Speaker 6: Drivers typically only get paid when they're hauling loaded miles.

105
00:05:57,839 --> 00:05:59,920
Speaker 6: The empty miles are when they're going to position to

106
00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:02,440
Speaker 6: pick up a load, and so if you get delayed

107
00:06:02,480 --> 00:06:05,240
Speaker 6: for loading, you might get pushed two or three hours.

108
00:06:05,279 --> 00:06:07,880
Speaker 6: That pushes off everything that you have down the line.

109
00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:10,800
Speaker 6: So the real challenge is that the driver pays that

110
00:06:10,920 --> 00:06:13,080
Speaker 6: price because they can't make up that time.

111
00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:17,920
Speaker 2: In twenty thirteen, the government capped how long drivers can

112
00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:20,880
Speaker 2: be on the clock during an average week at seventy

113
00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:25,239
Speaker 2: hours each day. They can work fourteen hours, only eleven

114
00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:28,560
Speaker 2: of which can be spent driving, and most drivers don't

115
00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:31,240
Speaker 2: get paid for the time they spend on the loading dock,

116
00:06:31,800 --> 00:06:35,440
Speaker 2: So if drivers spend too many hours waiting around without pay,

117
00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:38,640
Speaker 2: that means fewer paid hours on the road.

118
00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:41,920
Speaker 5: You have no idea how soul destroying sitting.

119
00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:44,040
Speaker 2: Around waiting is Dean crok Again.

120
00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:46,680
Speaker 5: I probably spend a third of my working life sitting

121
00:06:46,760 --> 00:06:49,680
Speaker 5: on ship a loading docks, waiting to get loaded and unloaded,

122
00:06:50,279 --> 00:06:53,800
Speaker 5: and losing thousands and thousands of dollars in the process.

123
00:06:54,320 --> 00:06:58,160
Speaker 2: All that leads to a really unpredictable schedule, which makes

124
00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:01,520
Speaker 2: the job a tough sell, especially for people with families.

125
00:07:01,720 --> 00:07:04,719
Speaker 5: One of the things that drives drivers absolutely insane is

126
00:07:04,839 --> 00:07:08,400
Speaker 5: not having consistent start and finish times like One of

127
00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:11,240
Speaker 5: the things we found that increased driver turnover rates, like

128
00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:15,040
Speaker 5: as in quitting, was when drivers didn't get home when

129
00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:17,880
Speaker 5: they were promised. You could be stuck in traffic and

130
00:07:17,960 --> 00:07:20,520
Speaker 5: not get home for an hour later, and that's very

131
00:07:20,520 --> 00:07:23,640
Speaker 5: difficult if you've got childcare and you have to pick

132
00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:27,600
Speaker 5: up someone at four PM. Really difficult industry to work

133
00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:29,000
Speaker 5: around those fixed deadlines.

134
00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:33,160
Speaker 2: Even for truckers who do get more consistent hours, the

135
00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:34,720
Speaker 2: days can get really long.

136
00:07:35,240 --> 00:07:38,760
Speaker 5: As a primary care a twelve hour day just doesn't work.

137
00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:41,080
Speaker 5: I need someone to look after my children. Whether I'm

138
00:07:41,080 --> 00:07:44,040
Speaker 5: male or female like that, It's a really difficult industry

139
00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:46,200
Speaker 5: to work in, even if I'm going to be home

140
00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:46,760
Speaker 5: every night.

141
00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:50,960
Speaker 2: Then there are the challenges that disproportionately affect women drivers.

142
00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:53,000
Speaker 2: Here's Bloomberg's j One King.

143
00:07:53,520 --> 00:07:56,360
Speaker 1: There are dangers on the road if you're driving alone,

144
00:07:56,720 --> 00:08:00,920
Speaker 1: you know, risks of sexual harassment, and so that's kind

145
00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:03,600
Speaker 1: of deterred women from entering this job.

146
00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:08,160
Speaker 2: So how are companies like Walmart trying to recruit the

147
00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:12,880
Speaker 2: next generation of drivers before the current workforce retires. That's

148
00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:25,880
Speaker 2: coming up. When Leslie Scott decided to become a truck driver,

149
00:08:26,520 --> 00:08:30,560
Speaker 2: she knew she wanted to drive for Walmart. They paid

150
00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:35,439
Speaker 2: the best, They paid the best. Walmart started to anticipate

151
00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:37,959
Speaker 2: a truck and crunch more than a decade ago, when

152
00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:41,520
Speaker 2: those new caps on driver hours were introduced. To get

153
00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:44,160
Speaker 2: ahead of it, the company ramped up its recruitment and

154
00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:48,000
Speaker 2: retention efforts for its private fleet. In twenty twenty three,

155
00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:52,080
Speaker 2: it launched something called the Associate to Driver Program. Here's

156
00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:53,280
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's jaywon King.

157
00:08:53,679 --> 00:09:00,360
Speaker 1: They're basically tapping their existing employees who you know, work

158
00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:03,880
Speaker 1: at their stores or on the front lines and training

159
00:09:03,920 --> 00:09:08,599
Speaker 1: them to become truck drivers by covering the costs associated

160
00:09:08,679 --> 00:09:11,720
Speaker 1: with you know, learning and getting the you know, the

161
00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:15,319
Speaker 1: commercial driver's licenses, which you know cost thousands of dollars.

162
00:09:15,440 --> 00:09:19,280
Speaker 1: And already about half of their new drivers come through

163
00:09:19,280 --> 00:09:21,640
Speaker 1: that program, and they, you know, that that's something that

164
00:09:21,679 --> 00:09:24,880
Speaker 1: they want to keep investing in. To build their pipeline.

165
00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:30,760
Speaker 2: Walmart has given its drivers more predictable schedules and Wi

166
00:09:30,800 --> 00:09:34,680
Speaker 2: Fi equipped trucks. For safety, it pairs up drivers on

167
00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:37,680
Speaker 2: its most treacherous routes, like the one in Alaska that

168
00:09:37,800 --> 00:09:41,600
Speaker 2: Leslie and Michelle drive. Leslie and Michelle both earn about

169
00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:45,000
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars a year. That's

170
00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:49,239
Speaker 2: about twice what a typical US trucker makes. Here's Leslie

171
00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:50,319
Speaker 2: this kay.

172
00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:55,680
Speaker 3: Sliving w I can support my family capture with the

173
00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:56,800
Speaker 3: amount of line that I've.

174
00:09:56,640 --> 00:10:02,000
Speaker 2: Man, Leslie says. The job still ha its challenges, especially

175
00:10:02,040 --> 00:10:05,640
Speaker 2: on the Alaska route she's driving. She's encountered hungry bears

176
00:10:05,640 --> 00:10:09,480
Speaker 2: on the road, faced extreme weather and dangerous winds, and

177
00:10:09,559 --> 00:10:11,560
Speaker 2: had to deal with the constraints of her schedule.

178
00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:15,320
Speaker 3: It took me two years to get a mamogram.

179
00:10:15,960 --> 00:10:19,240
Speaker 2: The sedentary nature of the work has taken a toll too.

180
00:10:19,400 --> 00:10:23,199
Speaker 2: Since she started driving, Leslie gained seventy pounds and had

181
00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:28,600
Speaker 2: to have bariatric surgery last year. Still, having Michelle as

182
00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:32,480
Speaker 2: her driving partner makes Leslie feel more secure on the road.

183
00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:36,600
Speaker 2: Leslie also says she feels a lot of job security.

184
00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:39,160
Speaker 2: This is the first job where she feels like if

185
00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:42,000
Speaker 2: she were to quit, she'd have another offer in no time.

186
00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:45,840
Speaker 2: Leslie just loves what she does, and she thinks the

187
00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:48,520
Speaker 2: trucking industry as a whole could do more to bring

188
00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:49,720
Speaker 2: other women on board.

189
00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:51,160
Speaker 3: I think maybe.

190
00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:54,120
Speaker 4: Too enties for women to do this, especially in my

191
00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:57,680
Speaker 4: age group, because we are the free ones. Most of

192
00:10:57,760 --> 00:11:01,280
Speaker 4: us have rates for children, and we're also proven fact

193
00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:04,880
Speaker 4: to be a safer once we're more cautious, you know,

194
00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:05,679
Speaker 4: they say we.

195
00:11:05,679 --> 00:11:09,400
Speaker 3: Don't have big accidents. Get all the brands out here.

196
00:11:09,640 --> 00:11:12,640
Speaker 3: That's my mom truck. Wellcome, thanks the world.

197
00:11:12,679 --> 00:11:13,199
Speaker 5: The real.

198
00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:19,880
Speaker 2: Today about eighteen percent of Walmart's truckers or women, according

199
00:11:19,920 --> 00:11:23,240
Speaker 2: to an estimate from the data firm Revellia Lapse. That's

200
00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:26,960
Speaker 2: nearly double the rate of competitors. But high pay isn't

201
00:11:27,080 --> 00:11:29,920
Speaker 2: enough to combat some of the other factors keeping women

202
00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:35,760
Speaker 2: out of the industry, like the long and often unusual hours. Leslie,

203
00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:39,319
Speaker 2: for example, was actually always interested in becoming a trucker,

204
00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:41,560
Speaker 2: but it took until her kids were out of the

205
00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:43,720
Speaker 2: house for her to feel like she could make it work.

206
00:11:44,720 --> 00:11:48,559
Speaker 2: I asked Dean Krok, the analyst for DAT Freight and Analytics,

207
00:11:48,920 --> 00:11:52,480
Speaker 2: how the industry overall is doing with recruiting women and

208
00:11:52,520 --> 00:11:56,600
Speaker 2: younger drivers. He said, there have been some improvements, some

209
00:11:57,040 --> 00:11:59,280
Speaker 2: redesigning of how trucking works.

210
00:12:00,280 --> 00:12:03,200
Speaker 5: We are doing better. So the pandemic drove a lot

211
00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:06,880
Speaker 5: more warehouses closer to urban populations. So when we were

212
00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:10,640
Speaker 5: at home during the pandemic ordering things overnight, that drew

213
00:12:10,720 --> 00:12:14,680
Speaker 5: a lot more warehouses that staged our freight closer to us.

214
00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:18,240
Speaker 5: So what that created was a lot more deliveries in

215
00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:21,959
Speaker 5: smaller vehicles closer to our homes. That created a whole

216
00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:23,000
Speaker 5: new set of jobs.

217
00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:26,719
Speaker 2: Some of those are gig economy jobs. People using their

218
00:12:26,760 --> 00:12:29,880
Speaker 2: own vehicles to drop packages on doorsteps in the middle

219
00:12:29,920 --> 00:12:30,319
Speaker 2: of the night.

220
00:12:30,640 --> 00:12:33,800
Speaker 5: But there's been a whole new economy around small box

221
00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:37,400
Speaker 5: trucks and straight trucks and smaller vehicles delivering freight in

222
00:12:37,520 --> 00:12:40,280
Speaker 5: that sort of maybe one hundred mile radius. So there's

223
00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:44,319
Speaker 5: a lot of growth in that particular market. There's also

224
00:12:44,360 --> 00:12:47,480
Speaker 5: a lot of growth in what I called daycab work.

225
00:12:48,080 --> 00:12:50,480
Speaker 5: So what the industry is doing a lot more of,

226
00:12:50,520 --> 00:12:53,640
Speaker 5: and what it can do more of is make vehicles

227
00:12:53,840 --> 00:12:58,760
Speaker 5: and jobs and routes and freight networks more conducive to

228
00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:02,200
Speaker 5: jobs that get drivers home every night.

229
00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:05,160
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, Dean says, making

230
00:13:05,160 --> 00:13:07,800
Speaker 2: this job appeal to more people comes down to changing

231
00:13:07,840 --> 00:13:12,360
Speaker 2: how a majority of drivers are paid, offering annual guaranteed

232
00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:16,360
Speaker 2: salaries as opposed to the hourly per mile and activity

233
00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:18,400
Speaker 2: rates that companies like Walmer use.

234
00:13:18,880 --> 00:13:20,400
Speaker 5: So it doesn't matter how long you spend on a

235
00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:22,480
Speaker 5: loading dock, you're paid by the salary, you're paid by

236
00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:24,839
Speaker 5: the yow, or paid by the year. So one of

237
00:13:24,880 --> 00:13:27,200
Speaker 5: the challenges they've got here is drivers have to be

238
00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:29,640
Speaker 5: paid for the time they spend on the job. So

239
00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:32,679
Speaker 5: to attract the new generation of drivers to the industry,

240
00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:35,800
Speaker 5: they have to find a way to pay them for

241
00:13:35,880 --> 00:13:37,439
Speaker 5: their time and services.

242
00:13:37,880 --> 00:13:42,720
Speaker 2: In the meantime, new autonomous technologies could transform the nature

243
00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:43,200
Speaker 2: of the job.

244
00:13:43,600 --> 00:13:47,040
Speaker 5: I think what you'll see is that trucking will become different.

245
00:13:47,120 --> 00:13:49,840
Speaker 5: Technology I think will help bridge the gap. Instead of

246
00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:52,839
Speaker 5: me trying to stay awake between midnight and six, technology

247
00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:55,760
Speaker 5: will take over and I'll assist me through that worst

248
00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:57,920
Speaker 5: period of the night. If you think about a current

249
00:13:57,960 --> 00:14:01,120
Speaker 5: truck driver, you have an autonomous vehicle going along into

250
00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:04,240
Speaker 5: State forty out near Laramie, and it has a flat tire,

251
00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:07,760
Speaker 5: someone's got to put the warning triangles out. If you've

252
00:14:07,800 --> 00:14:11,240
Speaker 5: got somebody that's in the vehicle doing the other duties,

253
00:14:11,559 --> 00:14:14,800
Speaker 5: I could see that defraying some of the costs of

254
00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:19,520
Speaker 5: the driver. But that person's also doing other paperwork, triaging

255
00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:21,320
Speaker 5: things that might get wrong in the vehicle. So I

256
00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:24,360
Speaker 5: think that's where we might land with a hybrid type driver.

257
00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:30,480
Speaker 2: As the trucking industry confronts these coming changes, Leslie Scott

258
00:14:30,560 --> 00:14:33,480
Speaker 2: is about to embark on her own next chapter. Her

259
00:14:33,560 --> 00:14:37,080
Speaker 2: driving partner, Michelle, is planning to retire shortly after she

260
00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:38,640
Speaker 2: turned seventy next year.

261
00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,520
Speaker 3: And my therapist asked me, where's your safe space in

262
00:14:42,560 --> 00:14:45,680
Speaker 3: your life? And I said it or not. Cab of

263
00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:48,160
Speaker 3: the truck in Alaska's my safe space.

264
00:14:48,280 --> 00:14:48,520
Speaker 2: Yeah.

265
00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:52,120
Speaker 3: When I close is Curtain's pie. Because of her, I

266
00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:55,080
Speaker 3: don't think about what's out here. Yeah, because I know.

267
00:14:55,320 --> 00:14:59,560
Speaker 2: She's gotten Thelma will be looking for a new Luise.

268
00:15:03,720 --> 00:15:06,680
Speaker 2: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.

269
00:15:07,040 --> 00:15:09,680
Speaker 2: To get more from the Big Take and unlimited access

270
00:15:09,720 --> 00:15:13,560
Speaker 2: to all of bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg

271
00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:17,680
Speaker 2: dot com slash podcast offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be

272
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:18,320
Speaker 2: back tomorrow