A few weeks ago, Today’s Trucking columnist Jason Rhyno commented on how trucking and transportation industry images were beginning to collapse, even as more drivers than ever may be needed. He wrote a thoughtful article about what industry leaders could do to fix that situation and attract the kind of people that could once again restore the industry to its salad days of decades past for everyone, not just the people reaping the profits from the top.
He begins with a very ominous statistic and follows with a perfect example of why company managers aren’t going to be able to do it alone:
“There will be over eight billion people living on Earth in 2030, the report states. More people means more production, and that means the transportation and logistics industry will have to keep a lot more goods flowing a hell of a lot faster.
It’s 2012 now, and baby boomers are going to start retiring, draining the pool of future transportation and logistics employees. The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals estimates that the U.S. trucking industry will need to hire one million new drivers in the next 15 years just to deal with replacing retirees and the increasing levels of freight.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. ‘It’s been an issue that has plagued us for a while,’ said Ken Evans, U.S. transportation & logistics leader for PwC. ‘Typically, we aren’t subject to violent swings in transportation demand. Normally, we grow about the rate of GDP. But it’s kind of staggering when you look at the basic math and what our needs are going to be.’ ”