A Virginia moving company is responding to a persistent shortage of professional truckers by boosting driver pay levels to a minimum of $100,000, saying the move will allow it to keep up with a labor market that has been rocked by an e-commerce boom and pandemic restrictions.
The move comes as the freight trucking sector is stuck in a period of historically tight capacity that is calling for every available truckload and less than truckload (LTL) resource to meet demand for online orders during the nation’s recovery from the pandemic recession.
Against that backdrop, Sterling, Virginia-based JK Moving Services has increased its annual guaranteed income for experienced Over-the-Road Class-A CDL Drivers to a minimum of $100,000, the company said Tuesday. According to the company, that pay rate is twice the national average for the position, as market demands grow and the pool of qualified candidates shrinks. JK cited data from the job and recruiting website site Glassdoor showing that the national industry average for that position is just over $50,000.
“We have a driver shortage in our country that has been exacerbated by growth in online retailing,” JK CEO Chuck Kuhn said in a release. “Despite the difficulty in attracting drivers, we remain committed to providing a best-in-class experience for our customers and that starts with investing in having a great team.”
Despite those tensions, the sector got some good news with recent economic statistics showing that truck driver turnover did not rise in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the American Trucking Associations (ATA’s) Quarterly Employment Report. However, truck fleets still have their work cut out for them in attracting more workers to apply for open jobs, due to challenges like rising wages for warehouse jobs and the difficulty of gaining a commercial driver’s license (CDL), third-party logistics (3PL) services provider Coyote said in a recent report.
