TULSA, Okla. — Driver iQ, a provider of background screening and driver monitoring services to the trucking industry, said carriers taking part in its first quarter 2019 Recruitment & Retention Survey say their biggest challenge is finding “qualified” applicants.
“Even though 60% of the recruiters expect the total number of applications will be up next quarter, 80% of the recruiters say that finding ‘qualified’ applicants is their biggest challenge,” said Lana Batts, co-president of Driver iQ. “In other words, recruiters have to expand their recruiting department to wade through more applications and spend more money on background screening to find the qualified applicant.”
Batts said that recruiting executives have mixed reviews on what they think turnover will do next quarter, with 38% percent thinking it will increase, 35% thinking it will remain the same, and 27% thinking it will decrease.
Batts believes this lack of consensus is primarily because of individual carrier’s uncertainty over the economy, plus their own individual efforts to control their fleet size and to provide higher compensation.
Recruiters believe total compensation (52%) and time away from home (55%) remain the biggest causes of driver turnover. As with last quarter, 60% expect that future driver compensation will continue to increase.
Batts further noted that “in order to attract new applicants, the carriers are turning to the use of internet-based generic job boards like Monster.com and Craigslist, with the usage of Monster up 46% over what it was five years ago and Craigslist up 30%.”
Among the details in the survey are the following:
- Carriers reported that 33% of their leads self-select out of the applicant process (or “ghost” the recruiter) without the carrier knowing why. This is about the same as it was five years ago.
- Self-selecting out was also the biggest reason drivers leave orientation – higher than failed medical exams, drug tests or background screens.
The Q1 2019 Trends in Truckload Recruitment and Retention Survey from Driver iQ is
the latest in a planned series of quarterly surveys designed to better understand and measure recruiting and retention experiences and expectations in the truckload sector.
The results of the survey are coupled with observations of Driver iQ personnel engaged in the background screening industry. The survey represents the views of recruiting managers who operate over 75,000 trucks and the majority of the responses came from dry van carriers with over $100 million in gross operating revenues.
For more information, visit www.DriveriQ.com.
The Trucker News Staff produces engaging content for not only TheTrucker.com, but also The Trucker Newspaper, which has been serving the trucking industry for more than 30 years. With a focus on drivers, the Trucker News Staff aims to provide relevant, objective content pertaining to the trucking segment of the transportation industry. The Trucker News Staff is based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
