The White House announced a plan to combat the domestic supply chain crisis through a recruitment drive for the trucking industry, but failed to acknowledge the role they’ve played in causing the driver shortage.
The fact-sheet of the “Biden-Harris Administration Trucking Action Plan to Strengthen America’s Trucking Workforce,” noted that despite wages going up 7-13% across the trucking industry, employment “is still below pre-pandemic levels.”
They blamed outdated infrastructure, the coronavirus, and “a historic volume of goods” being purchased, 72% of which are trucked across the nation, for the supply chain crisis. Predictably the announcement failed to acknowledge their own role in gutting the sector.
Trucking industry leaders warned the Biden administration that the now court-stalled national vaccine mandate for employees with more than 100 employees could cost the industry “37% of drivers at a time when the nation is already short 80,000 truck drivers,” with the holidays just around the corner, in an open letter penned in November.
The administration further restricted the industry by requiring that non-resident truck drivers from Mexico and Canada get fully vaccinated by Jan. 22 in order to cross the border. The mandate was pushed back from the original Nov. 8 deadline.
A spokesperson for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association slammed the move as an example of “how unnecessary government mandates can force experienced owner-operators and independent truckers out of business.”
According to the administration’s fact-sheet, they have created four initiatives to reverse the damage.
$30 million in funding will be allocated to states that expedite the CDL issuance process by the Department of Transportation (DOT), but fledgling drivers don’t seem to be conducive to creating a “safe trucking workforce” as advertised.
They also plan to roll-out Registered Apprenticeship training programs through a “90-day challenge,” which will be funded with $8 million from the Department of Labor (DOL).
The Biden Admin estimates there are potentially 70,000 veterans who are “likely to have certified trucking experience in the last five years,” and plan to recruit them.
Finally, the DOL and DOT are launching the “Driving Good Jobs” initiative to study truck driver’s issues, identify regulatory actions to support trucker retention, and develop best industry practices.
