Indeed it is not about trucker supply. The current industry is structured to allow shippers to ship a truckload of goods from random point A to random point B, on-demand and cheaply. This requires a large, relatively low-paid workforce that is subject to miserable work conditions of long stretches away from home sleeping in a truck cab and eating miserable food.

The industry does not have to be structured this way. Most obviously, trucker pay could increase, but this would increase rates. Or, working conditions could improve. For example, have drivers work a fixed route and ferry trailers back and forth. Indeed a lot of less-than-truckload travels this way. This would dramatically improve working conditions, but increase costs and transit time.

So I’ve concluded the trucking industry is just fine. There is no trucker shortage. Shippers want shipping on the cheap, and this is the marketplace that results. Shippers who want to, and can, fix this, do so by setting up their own in-house shipping or otherwise set up their business to not rely on rock-bottom shipping practices. Shippers who cannot or will not fix this for themselves, as well as trucking companies that make their business in this marketplace, sit around and whine about the “trucker shortage” they have created.