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Comment by strikelaserclaw | Hacker News Reader

"possible solution to the driver shortage and regulatory constraints faced by freight haulers across the country" - mmm, every industry is facing worker shortage huh -.-

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The driver shortage is a legitimate crisis and was the cause of huge rate increases last year. Driving a truck is a difficult job and fewer people are choosing it as a career path. [0]

“Regulatory constraints” refers to FMCSA’s hours-of-service rules, the legal limit to how many hours a driver may operate a truck in a given day. [1]

[0] https://www.npr.org/2018/01/09/576752327/trucking-industry-s...

[1] https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-...

Unemployment is very low right now. However, the most accurate statement is always, "shortage of people that have the qualifications we want that are willing to work for the payment we're offering."

Note: Unemployment is measured through participation in various workfinding government programs or receipt of unemployment benefits.

It doesn't really paint an accurate picture of how many are out of work, but getting by through alternative or illegal-quasi-legal means.

It also in no way measures the number of jobs a defined unit of work can supply, or whether the job itself creates enough of a return to be economically feasible to the doer.

It also in no way reflects that many jobs mow push for pre-acquired qualifications, which cost money, and lock out potential workforce.

No one wants to measure any of that. That leads to awkward questions.

The US federal government uses a monthly survey to compute unemployment statistics; it doesn't just tally up people receiving unemployment benefits.

It also ignores people that have not been working for more than a year, so basically if you're chronically unemployed (and are likely the type of person that need the most help) you're conveniently ignored for the sake of bureaucracy.

So add "responds to survey" to list of conditions of the measurement, and a link to the survey procedures would be nice.

This is why it cracks me up when the tech industry (or any other) publicly whines about not being able to find good employees. Raise rates & publicize it, and you'll see them appear as if by magic!

A friend of mine has a son (22 years old) who just started driving a semi truck for one of the big 'Dollar' store chains.

Pays $680 a week, he's home every 2 weeks, and as a bonus he gets to unload the truck.

Not a terrible job, but not many people want to work that schedule, and a life on the road isn't probably ideal.

Assuming a 50 week year, that's $34k per year, or roughly $17 per hour. No wonder people don't want that job. You work completely alone driving all day for not much more than minimum wage.

Huh? $17/hour is 230% of the Federal minimum wage, and 148% more than the highest state-level minimum in the country (Washington).

That's because kingnothing assumed a 40-hour week, while bluedino said "he's home every 2 weeks"

If you assume he's driving the FMCSA limit of 60 hours in 7 consecutive days, the hourly wage is lower. And if you count all the time he's away from home, it's lower still. And he's paying for truck stop food and sleeping in his cab to boot.

And a far cry from the reports of $73,000 reported in some sources [1]

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2015/10/09/news/economy/truck-driver-s...

> as a bonus he gets to unload the truck.

Literally unload? Does this mean something else? I wouldn't see this as a bonus.

It was sarcasm. Lots of truck driver jobs are hands-on.

Some drivers have to unload their trucks depending on the load and the receiver. For multiple LTL (less-than-truckload) loads the driver might stop at multiple facilities and unload a handful of pallets at each.

This would be more likely for smaller-format discount retail like, e.g., the Dollar Store or a restaurant supply chain.

I have family that works for a food distributor where their drivers get to restaurants, unload the truck, stock the items in the fridge/shelves, and take additional orders from the customer before they move on to the next delivery.

Local drivers. They follow a different process than long-haul drivers do and are way more likely to unload their own trucks.

This technology seems like it would do employ less people. Is there really a driver shortage that this wouldn't affect the employed drivers of USPS?

It would mean that they wouldn't have to raise rates to fix the shortage.

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