ILMA Compoundings July 2018 - 3

LETTER FROM THE CEO
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President
Dave Croghan
Maxum Petroleum

Ann Ball
CIMCOOL Industrial
Products LLC

Vice President
Barbara Kudis
Allegheny Petroleum
Products Co.

Barbara A. Bellanti
Battenfeld Grease &
Oil Corporation of N.Y.

Treasurer
Charles Decker
American Oil &
Supply International, LLC
Secretary
Scott A. Schwindaman
Lubrication Engineers, Inc.
Immediate Past President
Beth Ann Jones
Hangsterfer's Laboratories, Inc.

Michael Damiani
Radco Industries, Inc.
Lon Fanning
DuBois Chemicals
Jarrett Flegel
Boss Lubricants
Catharine T. Golden
Etna Products, Inc.
Frank H. Hamilton III
South Atlantic Services, Inc.
Greg Julian
Advanced Lubrication
Specialties
Kent Morris
Pinnacle Oil, Inc.
Ronald M. Powell
Moroil Technologies

STAFF
Chief Executive Officer
Holly Alfano
Associate Director
Martha F. Jolkovski
Director of
Communications
Brenda Gillinson, CAE
Member Services/
Marketing Manager
Tim Mack

Communications
Manager
Amber Lopez
Membership Manager
Meg Thaxton
Accounting Manager
Margaret Smith
General Counsel
Jeffrey L. Leiter

EDITORIAL, DESIGN
Contributing Editor
Brenda Gillinson, CAE

Designer
Mark St. Amand

THE YGS GROUP
Senior Editor
Drew Bankert

Copy Editor
Amanda Holahan

Managing Editor
Sam Hoffmeister

Account Director
Tina Enck

MEDIA SALES
Vice President
Jack Davidson

Advertising Account
Executive
Tima Good
tima.good@theygsgroup.com

INDEPENDENT LUBRICANT
MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION
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Phone: 703-684-5574 * Fax: 703-836-8503 * www.ilma.org
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Compoundings (USPS 003-447) is published monthly by the
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Help Wanted

Raises, signing bonuses fail to attract truck drivers

ver the last year, we have been hearing more and more from members about
transportation issues. At the top of the list: the driver shortage.
According to the American Trucking Associations (ATA), more than
50,000 driving positions remained unfilled last year. Despite salary increases (with
some companies raising pay to as much as $80,000 annually), signing bonuses and
other incentives, the trucking industry struggles to attract drivers. Meanwhile, the
driver population is getting older, with an average age of 52. Younger people and
women haven't been drawn to the profession.
In addition, drivers have more opportunities today than in the past with the growth
of "last mile" shipments, thanks to the likes of Amazon. Rather than investing the extra
time and money getting a hazmat endorsement or living the difficult life of a longdistance driver, this new, growing career path allows drivers to live at home and work
somewhat normal hours delivering goods directly to consumers' doorsteps.
On top of these challenges, government-mandated electronic logging devices (ELDs)
were required beginning in December 2017. ELDs are unforgiving when it comes to
tracking drivers' time under the federal hours-of-service law. Previously by logging their
time manually in paper logs, drivers
often failed to count hours spent waitMake sure to read the excellent
ing to pick up loads or other downtime
cover feature by Steve Raetz of
when they were working but not
driving. Drivers are now running out
C.H. Robinson about market
of hours and are forced to stop driving
trends and transportation
earlier than they might have under the
strategies, starting on page 20.
manual logging system, resulting in
fewer miles traveled during a workday.
ATA's Chief Economist Bob Costello predicts more woes ahead. ATA estimates
that the driver shortage will climb to 174,000 by 2026. According to Costello, there's
no simple solution, but at some point, technology could provide some relief with
self-driving trucks and utilization of an Uber-like system to get more hours out of a
truck. Waymo, sister company to Google, has been testing autonomous cars and vans
in California and Arizona. In March, the company announced it would begin testing
autonomous trucks in Atlanta, where the company plans to use manned autonomous
trucks to deliver freight to Google operations. However, according to the trucking
industry, widespread use of true autonomous trucks remains many years away.
Meanwhile, manufacturers are getting stung by escalating shipping rates and are
struggling to move their products to customers. Shipping costs have hit an all-time
high, increasing as much as 40 percent for simple dry-good shipments over the last
year, according to data reported by the Washington Post.
Will the driver shortage and increased shipping rates slow the economy? Some argue
the robust economy has made the shortage more acute, with plenty of demand for
goods but not enough people to move them. But the fact is that almost all goods end
up on a truck at some point, and with more demand and less supply, rates are going up.
Businesses are passing on the costs to consumers. While inflation has been extraordinarily low over the last several years, soaring shipping costs could change all that.

Holly Alfano
Chief Executive Officer

ILMA is pleased to present a variety of viewpoints in Compoundings
magazine. Readers should keep in mind that bylined articles
represent the views of the named author or authors and not
necessarily the opinions, viewpoints or positions of ILMA

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ILMA Compoundings July 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ILMA Compoundings July 2018