As one may notice, the President, Joe Biden, is trying to fix his plan with goofing up the trucking industry with better recruitment and retention. The actual problem with this is that it tends to draw mixed reviews from the American Trucking Associations. As well as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.
Some people in trucking are trying to be nice about it.
Furthermore, Bill Sullivan, the ATA’s VP of Advocacy, believes that his group is encouraging the Biden Administration to recognize the importance of adding well-trained employees to the trucking workforce. Yet, they have “announced a path forward with what we believe will become a robust training opportunity for future commercial truck drivers.”
Joe Biden wants to focus on initiatives on bringing more diversity. Such as military vets and women into the trucking labor pool. Which, therefore, would change the Department of Labor. With their plans for Registered Apprenticeship programs.
Sullivan thinks that the apprenticeship is going to allow for any American to pursue a career for good wages and benefits in a safe manner with no debt that jobseekers can sometimes incur.
OOIDA Trucking President Todd Spencer believes in the emphasis of driver recruitment. It comes with the expense of solving the core issue on an industry-wide level: retention.
“However, the plan fails to address excessively high driver turnover rates. Attracting and training new drivers won’t solve the larger problem of retention. We need to create an environment where truckers can have long, safe and productive careers.”
Finally, The Department of Transportation is working to streamline the CDL trucking process well which would, in turn, reduce a delay from taking the test and therefore receiving licensure. This could very well provide grants to states. Those would improve their IT infrastructure. All in order to improve the licensing process. So it will be more evident in the coming months.