Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Late this past summer, Bloomberg retail reporter Jaywon Kang flew
Speaker 2: to Anchorage, Alaska, got in a truck and headed south
Speaker 2: toward Kenai.
Speaker 1: You're surrounded by these really majestic mountains, and it was summer,
Speaker 1: but you could still kind of see like snow on
Speaker 1: the tip of the mountains. It was sort of the
Speaker 1: calm before the storm, because you know, a few months
Speaker 1: after that trip, the weather would have started getting pretty harsh.
Speaker 3: Yes, hair will turn into pig cheeks of mines.
Speaker 2: Jaywan was riding Shaka and the driver's seat next to
Speaker 2: her there was a trucker named Leslie Scott.
Speaker 3: Do you see those mountains.
Speaker 4: It's pretty mellow right now, but sometimes it could be
Speaker 4: pretty treacherous.
Speaker 2: Leslie has been driving trucks for nearly a decade. For
Speaker 2: the past few years, she's driven with a partner, Michelle Saliki.
Speaker 2: They call themselves Belma and Luise. They even have a
Speaker 2: shared TikTok account.
Speaker 3: Okay, Michelle making video does a breakfast good I'd go
Speaker 3: there are you? Even though Lesslie makes me walk a mile.
Speaker 2: Leslie and Michelle don't fit the typical truck driver profile.
Speaker 2: More than ninety percent of truck drivers in the US
Speaker 2: are met, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Speaker 3: A lot of drivers still will say, oh, are you
Speaker 3: driving with your husband? They're shocked to the Seer team
Speaker 3: women out here, especially.
Speaker 2: Right Leslie is fifty eight, Michelle is sixty nine. The
Speaker 2: median age for a truck driver in the US is
Speaker 2: about forty five. Leslie and Michelle drive for Walmart, and
Speaker 2: right now the company is making an effort to recruit
Speaker 2: more drivers because the trucking industry is at a critical
Speaker 2: juncture and the decisions its biggest players make now could
Speaker 2: affect their ability to meet the increasingly insatiable demand of
Speaker 2: American shoppers in the years to come.
Speaker 1: The current workforce a lot of people will probably start
Speaker 1: retiring within the next ten years or so roughly, and
Speaker 1: so the big question is do we have enough people
Speaker 1: who can replace those people who are going to be
Speaker 1: leaving the workforce.
Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News Today on the show, the US trucking industry
Speaker 2: at a crossroads. An aging workforce, chronically high turnover, long hours,
Speaker 2: and inconsistent pay. How Walmart is trying to change trucking
Speaker 2: to appeal to people who might not otherwise find themselves
Speaker 2: behind the wheel. If you've ordered anything to be delivered
Speaker 2: this holiday season, or even bought something in a store,
Speaker 2: there's a good chance it got to your doorstep or
Speaker 2: onto those shelves because of a truck driver.
Speaker 1: The job of being a truck driver is really important
Speaker 1: in this country. I mean, you know, it's estimated that
Speaker 1: about seventy percent of freight is handled by commercial truck drivers.
Speaker 2: According to the shipping firm Pitney Boats, eleven and a
Speaker 2: half billion parcels were shipped in the US back in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. By twenty twenty four, that had nearly doubled
Speaker 2: to more than twenty two billion parcels. And moving all
Speaker 2: those packages across the country isn't easy.
Speaker 1: It's a really tough job. I mean, generally speaking, you're
Speaker 1: spending hours every day driving. You're spending days away from
Speaker 1: your loved ones, sometimes spending weeks away from your home.
Speaker 1: Depending on who you work for, you might be asked
Speaker 1: to help unload and load all the goods in that truck.
Speaker 1: So that's physically demanding.
Speaker 5: It's one of the hottest jobs I've evid done in
Speaker 5: my life.
Speaker 2: That's Dean Krok. Today he works as an animals at
Speaker 2: DAT Freight and Analytics, but before that he spent years
Speaker 2: as a driver in Australia before moving to the US
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 5: You've got to be able to handle being on your own,
Speaker 5: so there's the mental aspect of it, and as you
Speaker 5: get older, you become less tolerant to the extreme cold
Speaker 5: or the extreme physical activity.
Speaker 2: And the trucking industry can be volatile. It's prone to
Speaker 2: booms and busts. One of the booms came during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: Online sales shot up and the number of trucking carriers
Speaker 2: rose to fill that.
Speaker 5: Need, and then demand fell away, so those trucks had
Speaker 5: to do something. I created this over supply of trucks
Speaker 5: on the road and they competed for less freight and
Speaker 5: it drove freight rates down.
Speaker 2: Dean says, we've been in a freight recession for the
Speaker 2: last three to four years.
Speaker 5: And now we're starting to see bankruptcy start to rise
Speaker 5: and turnover levels start to increase, driver pay levels of
Speaker 5: starting to decline, so we're at the bottom of the market.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of people who operate this when it's
Speaker 6: economically viable, and otherwise they'll just park it and do
Speaker 6: something else.
Speaker 2: Chris Kaplis runs the Center for Transportation and Logistics at
Speaker 2: MIT and founded MIT's Freight Lab, which.
Speaker 6: Looks specifically how companies, shippers, truckers, transportation providers, carriers, and
Speaker 6: brokers can all work together.
Speaker 2: Chris says that for all these industry players, driver retention
Speaker 2: is a big issue.
Speaker 6: Turnover is pretty high. Sometimes for a lot of carriers
Speaker 6: it's one hundred percent. Doesn't mean that every driver leaves,
Speaker 6: but you have some that leave in much shorter periods
Speaker 6: of time.
Speaker 2: That means you might be going through multiple drivers in
Speaker 2: one position, even if others stay on. That's expensive for carriers.
Speaker 2: Chris says one reason for the high turnover is how
Speaker 2: drivers are paid.
Speaker 6: Drivers typically only get paid when they're hauling loaded miles.
Speaker 6: The empty miles are when they're going to position to
Speaker 6: pick up a load, and so if you get delayed
Speaker 6: for loading, you might get pushed two or three hours.
Speaker 6: That pushes off everything that you have down the line.
Speaker 6: So the real challenge is that the driver pays that
Speaker 6: price because they can't make up that time.
Speaker 2: In twenty thirteen, the government capped how long drivers can
Speaker 2: be on the clock during an average week at seventy
Speaker 2: hours each day. They can work fourteen hours, only eleven
Speaker 2: of which can be spent driving, and most drivers don't
Speaker 2: get paid for the time they spend on the loading dock,
Speaker 2: So if drivers spend too many hours waiting around without pay,
Speaker 2: that means fewer paid hours on the road.
Speaker 5: You have no idea how soul destroying sitting.
Speaker 2: Around waiting is Dean crok Again.
Speaker 5: I probably spend a third of my working life sitting
Speaker 5: on ship a loading docks, waiting to get loaded and unloaded,
Speaker 5: and losing thousands and thousands of dollars in the process.
Speaker 2: All that leads to a really unpredictable schedule, which makes
Speaker 2: the job a tough sell, especially for people with families.
Speaker 5: One of the things that drives drivers absolutely insane is
Speaker 5: not having consistent start and finish times like One of
Speaker 5: the things we found that increased driver turnover rates, like
Speaker 5: as in quitting, was when drivers didn't get home when
Speaker 5: they were promised. You could be stuck in traffic and
Speaker 5: not get home for an hour later, and that's very
Speaker 5: difficult if you've got childcare and you have to pick
Speaker 5: up someone at four PM. Really difficult industry to work
Speaker 5: around those fixed deadlines.
Speaker 2: Even for truckers who do get more consistent hours, the
Speaker 2: days can get really long.
Speaker 5: As a primary care a twelve hour day just doesn't work.
Speaker 5: I need someone to look after my children. Whether I'm
Speaker 5: male or female like that, It's a really difficult industry
Speaker 5: to work in, even if I'm going to be home
Speaker 5: every night.
Speaker 2: Then there are the challenges that disproportionately affect women drivers.
Speaker 2: Here's Bloomberg's j One King.
Speaker 1: There are dangers on the road if you're driving alone,
Speaker 1: you know, risks of sexual harassment, and so that's kind
Speaker 1: of deterred women from entering this job.
Speaker 2: So how are companies like Walmart trying to recruit the
Speaker 2: next generation of drivers before the current workforce retires. That's
Speaker 2: coming up. When Leslie Scott decided to become a truck driver,
Speaker 2: she knew she wanted to drive for Walmart. They paid
Speaker 2: the best, They paid the best. Walmart started to anticipate
Speaker 2: a truck and crunch more than a decade ago, when
Speaker 2: those new caps on driver hours were introduced. To get
Speaker 2: ahead of it, the company ramped up its recruitment and
Speaker 2: retention efforts for its private fleet. In twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: it launched something called the Associate to Driver Program. Here's
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's jaywon King.
Speaker 1: They're basically tapping their existing employees who you know, work
Speaker 1: at their stores or on the front lines and training
Speaker 1: them to become truck drivers by covering the costs associated
Speaker 1: with you know, learning and getting the you know, the
Speaker 1: commercial driver's licenses, which you know cost thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: And already about half of their new drivers come through
Speaker 1: that program, and they, you know, that that's something that
Speaker 1: they want to keep investing in. To build their pipeline.
Speaker 2: Walmart has given its drivers more predictable schedules and Wi
Speaker 2: Fi equipped trucks. For safety, it pairs up drivers on
Speaker 2: its most treacherous routes, like the one in Alaska that
Speaker 2: Leslie and Michelle drive. Leslie and Michelle both earn about
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars a year. That's
Speaker 2: about twice what a typical US trucker makes. Here's Leslie
Speaker 2: this kay.
Speaker 3: Sliving w I can support my family capture with the
Speaker 3: amount of line that I've.
Speaker 2: Man, Leslie says. The job still ha its challenges, especially
Speaker 2: on the Alaska route she's driving. She's encountered hungry bears
Speaker 2: on the road, faced extreme weather and dangerous winds, and
Speaker 2: had to deal with the constraints of her schedule.
Speaker 3: It took me two years to get a mamogram.
Speaker 2: The sedentary nature of the work has taken a toll too.
Speaker 2: Since she started driving, Leslie gained seventy pounds and had
Speaker 2: to have bariatric surgery last year. Still, having Michelle as
Speaker 2: her driving partner makes Leslie feel more secure on the road.
Speaker 2: Leslie also says she feels a lot of job security.
Speaker 2: This is the first job where she feels like if
Speaker 2: she were to quit, she'd have another offer in no time.
Speaker 2: Leslie just loves what she does, and she thinks the
Speaker 2: trucking industry as a whole could do more to bring
Speaker 2: other women on board.
Speaker 3: I think maybe.
Speaker 4: Too enties for women to do this, especially in my
Speaker 4: age group, because we are the free ones. Most of
Speaker 4: us have rates for children, and we're also proven fact
Speaker 4: to be a safer once we're more cautious, you know,
Speaker 4: they say we.
Speaker 3: Don't have big accidents. Get all the brands out here.
Speaker 3: That's my mom truck. Wellcome, thanks the world.
Speaker 5: The real.
Speaker 2: Today about eighteen percent of Walmart's truckers or women, according
Speaker 2: to an estimate from the data firm Revellia Lapse. That's
Speaker 2: nearly double the rate of competitors. But high pay isn't
Speaker 2: enough to combat some of the other factors keeping women
Speaker 2: out of the industry, like the long and often unusual hours. Leslie,
Speaker 2: for example, was actually always interested in becoming a trucker,
Speaker 2: but it took until her kids were out of the
Speaker 2: house for her to feel like she could make it work.
Speaker 2: I asked Dean Krok, the analyst for DAT Freight and Analytics,
Speaker 2: how the industry overall is doing with recruiting women and
Speaker 2: younger drivers. He said, there have been some improvements, some
Speaker 2: redesigning of how trucking works.
Speaker 5: We are doing better. So the pandemic drove a lot
Speaker 5: more warehouses closer to urban populations. So when we were
Speaker 5: at home during the pandemic ordering things overnight, that drew
Speaker 5: a lot more warehouses that staged our freight closer to us.
Speaker 5: So what that created was a lot more deliveries in
Speaker 5: smaller vehicles closer to our homes. That created a whole
Speaker 5: new set of jobs.
Speaker 2: Some of those are gig economy jobs. People using their
Speaker 2: own vehicles to drop packages on doorsteps in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night.
Speaker 5: But there's been a whole new economy around small box
Speaker 5: trucks and straight trucks and smaller vehicles delivering freight in
Speaker 5: that sort of maybe one hundred mile radius. So there's
Speaker 5: a lot of growth in that particular market. There's also
Speaker 5: a lot of growth in what I called daycab work.
Speaker 5: So what the industry is doing a lot more of,
Speaker 5: and what it can do more of is make vehicles
Speaker 5: and jobs and routes and freight networks more conducive to
Speaker 5: jobs that get drivers home every night.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, Dean says, making
Speaker 2: this job appeal to more people comes down to changing
Speaker 2: how a majority of drivers are paid, offering annual guaranteed
Speaker 2: salaries as opposed to the hourly per mile and activity
Speaker 2: rates that companies like Walmer use.
Speaker 5: So it doesn't matter how long you spend on a
Speaker 5: loading dock, you're paid by the salary, you're paid by
Speaker 5: the yow, or paid by the year. So one of
Speaker 5: the challenges they've got here is drivers have to be
Speaker 5: paid for the time they spend on the job. So
Speaker 5: to attract the new generation of drivers to the industry,
Speaker 5: they have to find a way to pay them for
Speaker 5: their time and services.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, new autonomous technologies could transform the nature
Speaker 2: of the job.
Speaker 5: I think what you'll see is that trucking will become different.
Speaker 5: Technology I think will help bridge the gap. Instead of
Speaker 5: me trying to stay awake between midnight and six, technology
Speaker 5: will take over and I'll assist me through that worst
Speaker 5: period of the night. If you think about a current
Speaker 5: truck driver, you have an autonomous vehicle going along into
Speaker 5: State forty out near Laramie, and it has a flat tire,
Speaker 5: someone's got to put the warning triangles out. If you've
Speaker 5: got somebody that's in the vehicle doing the other duties,
Speaker 5: I could see that defraying some of the costs of
Speaker 5: the driver. But that person's also doing other paperwork, triaging
Speaker 5: things that might get wrong in the vehicle. So I
Speaker 5: think that's where we might land with a hybrid type driver.
Speaker 2: As the trucking industry confronts these coming changes, Leslie Scott
Speaker 2: is about to embark on her own next chapter. Her
Speaker 2: driving partner, Michelle, is planning to retire shortly after she
Speaker 2: turned seventy next year.
Speaker 3: And my therapist asked me, where's your safe space in
Speaker 3: your life? And I said it or not. Cab of
Speaker 3: the truck in Alaska's my safe space.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: When I close is Curtain's pie. Because of her, I
Speaker 3: don't think about what's out here. Yeah, because I know.
Speaker 2: She's gotten Thelma will be looking for a new Luise.
Speaker 2: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 2: To get more from the Big Take and unlimited access
Speaker 2: to all of bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
Speaker 2: dot com slash podcast offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be
Speaker 2: back tomorrow