U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) last week helped lead a bipartisan contingent of more than 60 of his colleagues in requesting that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) immediately address the nation’s ongoing supply chain issues and labor shortage faced by trucking companies.
“Trucking has emerged as one of the two most critical bottlenecks in the persistent freight backlog, the other being long delays at loading docks and seaport terminals,” Rep. Lucas and the members wrote in a Nov. 17 letter sent to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. “A truck driver shortage in the United States coupled with a global economy emerging from the pandemic, has resulted in an uneven economic recovery for millions of American families.
“Unless we exhaust every possible avenue in which to address this crisis, we risk worsening supply constraints for manufacturers and rising prices on consumer goods,” they wrote.
Rep. Lucas, who co-led the letter with U.S. House Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott (D-GA), highlighted turnover rates in the trucking industry, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that the trucking industry lost 6 percent of its pre-pandemic labor force of 1.52 million workers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of October, the bureau said the industry recovered about 65,000 of those lost jobs but remains short of effectively meeting supply chain demands, according to their letter.
“To address these concerns, we urge the Employment and Training Administration within the DOL to prioritize Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) grant applicants looking to become truck drivers,” they wrote, noting that the WIOA program provides access to job training for dislocated workers, low-income individuals and out-of-work youth.
The approval process for some WIOA grant applications can take up to several weeks or months, even for applicants with experience driving long-haul trucks, wrote the congressmen. “Expediting the application and training process can help fill the estimated 80,000 openings currently available,” they wrote.
The letter has been endorsed by the American Trucking Associations, the National Association of Small Trucking Companies, Women in Trucking, the International Foodservice Distributors Association, the National Association of Truck Stop Operators, the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America, and the International Dairy Foods Association.