Driving a hard bargain: Haulage firms offer $100,000 salaries and $15,000 bonuses to lure 80,000 truckers and ease supply crisis as empty shipping containers are dumped in streets because California port is full
Some trucking companies are offering six-figure salaries to persuade prospective hires during a time when demand outweighs supply and California's biggest ports are backed up
US Foods, seeking a Northern Californian with a commercial driver’s license (CDL), is offering a $15,000 sign-up bonus and a $1,000 quarterly bonus to candidates willing to work for $38.50 an hour.
And last June, JK Moving Services said it would guarantee its qualified drivers a salary of at least $100,000 as ‘market demands grow and the pool of qualified candidates shrinks.’
It’s all happening as shipping backlogs delay cripple the supply chain, with Christmas toys and holiday goodies among the items stranded in the Pacific as freightliners queue for weeks to unload cargo.
Truck drivers’ wages have spiked by about 20 percent as companies work to lure newcomers into the industry, Shimoda said.
‘The industry is really using every tool at their disposal to try to get drivers in the door and to get them to stay,’ he said. ‘It's a driver’s world right now. If you have a commercial driver's license, it's worth its weight in gold right now.
‘It's a good time to have a have a CDL.’
But more drivers won’t solve all the transportation industry’s problems at the embattled Ports of Long Angeles and Long Beach, experts said.
Matt Schrap, chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Association, said thousands of empty containers are creating a nightmare for drivers trying to move product.
To top it off, ship operators are charging trucking companies – stuck with storing the equipment on their own lots – a per diem (daily levy) of $40-to-$50 for failing to return them on time, Schrap said.
‘We have to be accountable for them if they're in our possession,’ he said. ‘We just have nowhere to keep them. So that's why they're literally on streets and they’re being graffiti tagged because they're sitting out there.’
A neighborhood in LA has been backed up with delivery trucks throughout the day waiting for the jammed up cargo ships to unload, much to the dismay of residents trying to maneuver around the huge vehicles.
‘Sometimes they just unload the trailer in the street with no front part of it, and they just leave it there,’ Sonia Cervantes told CBS Los Angeles.
UCTI Trucking owner Frank Arrieran told the outlet that he’s resorted to keeping the containers on his yard, where space is already at a premium.
“Right now with the ports and everything that’s going on over there, we’re stuck with the containers, having to bring them all to the yard, and we only have so much space,” he said.
American Girl's sold-out blonde winter princess doll, which retailed for $250, is now going for up to $999 on platforms such as Mercari and eBay.
Exacerbating the issue is that importers previously stuffed their warehouses before former president Donald Trump's trade tariffs kicked in and have nowhere to store incoming product.
'It is such a complex issue,' Ferreira, an ocean freight expert, said. 'The warehouses are full, but they're filled with the wrong kind of product.'
Big box retailers – who often have their own storage facilities – are working around port backlogs and warehouse issues by chartering their own intercontinental freight ships, he said.
The nation's largest ports shattered more records Monday as massive bottlenecks at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach continue to wreak supply chain havoc.
The Marine Exchange of Southern California reported 100 vessels berthed October 18, topping the previous record of 97 set September 19.
Both figures are markedly higher than during pre-pandemic times, when just 17 ships were anchored.