“During the last recession, beginning in 2008, the driver shortage had been eliminated due to industry volume plummeting, but as it began to recover in 2011, so too did the reemergence of the shortage come about as well, growing to 38,000 jobs by 2014, and 48,000 by the end of 2015,” says Rod Suarez, economic analyst for American Trucking Associations (ATA).

Perhaps the largest contributing factor to this shortage is the fact that the current average driver age in the over-the-road truckload industry is 49 years old, meaning that an aging workforce will soon need to refill its ranks on a significant scale. Furthermore, the industry has historically struggled to attract all segments of the population, as just 5.8 percent of truck drivers are women.

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