Trucking companies continue to struggle to find folks to get behind the wheel. Iowa Motor Truck Association president, Brenda Neville, says they’d been behind before the pandemic, and it didn’t get any better.
57 percent of all truckers today are over the age of 45 and 23 percent are over the age of 55. That trend would see nearly one-quarter of the current trucking workforce hit retirement age in the next 10 years, not including the nearly eight percent of truck drivers currently working above the retirement age. Neville says there are openings from the big rigs to smaller trucks. She says one positive is you can get into the industry relatively quickly.
Neville says the industry needs an estimated 60-thousand-800 truck drivers immediately to fill open spots.