Truckers can haul in upwards of $20,000 a week. So why is there a serious driver shortage?

Truck driver Eric Mesker doesn’t mind working nights, sometimes 14 or 15 hours at a time. There’s less traffic, and he gets to sleep in after a long shift.

The 37-year-old driver for Fort Worth-based Sisu Energy pulls those night shifts two to three weeks a month, hauling fracking sand for the transportation company serving the oil and gas industry. He spends the rest of the month with his family in North Texas.

And he’s bringing home between $14,000 to $15,000 each week he works.

“There [are] guys that just stay out there,” Mesker said. “All the time. There’s work, so they’re going to be working.”

Across the country, truck driver pay is rising as a labor shortage squeezes a nation suddenly conscious of the supply chain’s reliance on the men and women piloting big rigs. Nearly every good consumed in the U.S. is put on a truck at some point, according to the American Trucking Associations.

For Mesker, the pay hike meant a couple thousand dollars extra each week he drives, starting in 2021.

Sisu Energy founder and owner Jim Grundy said some of his top drivers make upwards of $20,000 a week — with one pulling down $29,000. Grundy has 200 to 300 openings for truck operators in Texas, Louisiana and Mexico.

“Our top 10 percenters are doing $22,000, $23,000, $24,000 a week, but we’re not talking about 80% of our fleet that make $16 grand a week,” Grundy said. “When you separate that, of course, there’s over $700,000 a year in revenue for truck drivers. That’s more than the guys on Wall Street.”

But it still isn’t easy for Grundy to get the talent he needs. For starters, he doesn’t own any trucks. His drivers operate their own and split revenue with the company — 83% going to the driver. Mesker said the cost differs each month to own a truck, depending upon maintenance and gas prices. But insurance can run anywhere from $187 to $240 a week.

“It’s not going to fix itself overnight,” Grundy said. “We’re talking about a multiyear issue here.”

Before the pandemic began, there was a national truck driver shortage. Now that shortage is amplified. The American Trucking Associations said last year that the industry faces a historic shortage, needing 80,000 drivers.

The average weekly earnings of long-haul truckers have been increasing four to five times faster than the historical average, according to Transport Topics, citing U.S. Department of Labor data.

Grundy said many veteran drivers retired at the start of the pandemic.

“A lot of folks left the industry entirely; a lot of folks lost their jobs,” Grundy said. “They couldn’t make payments on trucks. It was catastrophic, economically speaking, for a lot of folks in the industry. So it came down to the companies that really had the leverage and the buying power to sustain some level of operations.”

Driving schools for truck drivers also were closed during the pandemic, shutting down any potential influx of new drivers, Grundy said.

Another barrier to getting new drivers on the road is insurance. Over 172,000 drivers in Texas held commercial driver’s licenses as of 2020. Insurance companies typically won’t insure commercial drivers who aren’t at least 25, according to Grundy, despite the Texas Department of Transportation allowing 21-year-olds to obtain a license.

“You really can’t get these premium opportunities like working for us because insurance companies won’t allow you to work for it,” Grundy said. “They won’t insure you.”

On Dec. 16, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Department of Labor issued a 90-day trucking apprenticeship challenge to help expand registered apprenticeships in trucking. After 60 days, the challenge saw over 260 employers and industry partners step forward to expand apprenticeships.

Grundy isn’t alone in his search for drivers.

Kevin Kokjohn, vice president of operations for Addison Transportation, agreed the pandemic worsened the shortage and said it even made younger workers not want to be drivers. Addison Transportation is a freight brokerage company that operates as a middleman between a shipper of goods and a motor carrier. Shippers contact Addison Transportation to arrange for motor carriers to haul freight.

“As the age (to drive) got higher and higher and drivers retired, it’s not been a replacement for the drivers who have retired,” Kokjohn said. “It’s kind of been a long-term problem.”

Noting how working from home placed a bigger premium on the supply chain, Kokjohn said he’s seen slower response times for different problems that arise, which leads to inefficiencies.

The trucking industry hauled over 72% of all freight transported in the U.S. in 2019. In 2020, the industry generated over $732 billion in gross freight revenues.

If the industry can’t woo drivers into truck cabs, the American Trucking Associations fears the driver shortage could surpass 160,000 by 2030.

“It’s going to be a substantial issue,” Grundy said.