I don't quite understand how some here expect a problem that by one report has been developing 50 years and by many has developed for 5 or 10 years will be corrected overnight. However, I can tell you as someone who receives goods daily and ships them daily although only out of the country every few weeks, we've seen a little improvement in the last couple of weeks. Companies with their own trucks picking up at ports have seen far more, companies such as Walmart, Target, Costco, and Home Depot.
I was looking at something in detail yesterday as I wondered why we weren't experiencing the shipping problems some are. Very simple. We don't look for the cheapest shipper. The average trucker makes less than $50k per year and many of those have no benefits. I found several listings of pay by company. In one list, 29 paid on average $70,000 or more. Most of those also have benefits. Every company we use is among those. 105 listed pay less. Some pay $31,000 per year. Oh, and why won't Walmart have shortages? $86,000 per year and full benefits. I talked a bit to our head of our transportation. We have for each of our major routes to each of our major customers one line that gets all the business and one backup. We do not shop rates for each load. With department stores, they've often chosen the carrier or it's been done jointly. We don't have issues shipping from Greenville SC to Macy's Distribution in Dallas, because the regular carrier does it every time. Our Transportation Director has spoken to our carrier who picks up in Los Angeles regularly and they have drivers picking up there now 24/7. Still night shifts not equaling day, but drivers about to haul from Los Angeles to the East Coast have no problems picking up at night. Frankly, they're glad to get out of LA before the morning traffic.
Now, I still hope for reform in trucking, even after citing the above numbers. The hours worked for the $70k get overlooked. I think encouraging more miles in today's world where they're monitored every mile is stupid. I do believe a conversion to hourly pay will happen gradually or I hope it does. The driver only controls the hours they work. They don't control the route, the waiting time, the traffic. Perhaps dispatch and routing would do better. Breaks and meals are regulated. If a driver takes 12 hours for a route that was predicted to be 10 hours, it's not the driver's fault. If they speed to do it in 11 hours, it is their fault and not good for any of us. Major trucking companies now do monitor speed. Three major problems are traffic bottlenecks, equipment breakdown (and parts shortages are a problem today) and time to get loaded and unloaded. We will receive after normal hours and you can't imagine how appreciative drivers are. Instead of returning at 7:00 AM they deliver at 9:00 PM and often they're off the following day or they get a full run which they couldn't otherwise.
As an aside. Savannah is hilarious right now, but they're working on it. Five satellite lots but truckers don't know yet where or how to pick up. Some cursing, some laughing, but at least effort to take care of things. They already have two major expansion projects under construction. We love Savannah as we do Charleston, although it is much smaller.
Now, who is in trouble for the holidays. Small mom and pops I'm afraid. Especially if their vendor doesn't have their own US distribution centers.
That does bring us to another anticipated trend and that is more distribution centers throughout the country.
