EditorFor those who may have slept through Economics 101: The fastest way to see one’s wages rise is not by joining a union, it turns out, but by entering a field where the demand for workers is higher than the supply of qualified individuals to perform that work.
When jobs are plentiful and there is a shortage of workers, wages rise more rapidly than when there is an overabundance of workers.
Such is the case with the U.S. trucking industry, where long-haul truck drivers are the beneficiaries of a tight labor market and, according to CNBC have seen their wages increase an average of 17 percent over the last two years.
via CNBC:
The shortage of truck drivers in the U.S. is driving salaries higher, with gains up to 12 percent over the past year.
Average pay for long-haul truckers jumped 17 percent since the end of 2013 to a record average of $57,000 in 2015, according to the National Transportation Institute. The surge comes as U.S. employment costs overall are up just 2 percent and average weekly earnings are rising only 2.2 percent.
The shortage of truck drivers has grown to nearly 48,000 and could expand further due to a combination of industry growth and a retiring workforce, according to the American Trucking Associations’ Truck Driver Shortage Analysis for 2015.
Read the rest here.
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