TORONTO, Ont. – With at least three big American carriers launching recruitment campaigns on Canadian turf, and huge transborder companies like Schneider National announcing plans to double the U.S.-based company’s 2004 pay increase (and increase time at home opportunities) it looks like Canadian drivers and O/Os are fast becoming a hot commodity on the cross border market.
“We’ve found that Canadian O/Os are generally better at crossing the border – better with the paperwork, because they do it on most every load they carry south and north, ” says Jim Reeves of Mercer Transportation Company, based in Louisville, Ky.
Reeves is director of international operations and the company’s point man for its soon-to-be launched recruitment campaign in Ontario, and the only U.S. representative who would speak to Truck News on the record.
Mercer, originally founded in Texas, is a truckload carrier specializing in the transport of construction materials and metals via flatbed trailers.
The company has enough customer presence in Ontario to merit a dispatch office in Burlington and a campaign to recruit more Canadian O/Os, says Reeves.
“We have our largest manufacturing base for Canada in St. Thomas,” says Reeves.
The company currently has 17 O/Os working for it in the general Toronto area, but it’s looking to hire 10 more Canadian O/Os immediately, and about 50 more in the next couple of years via truck stop recruitment campaigns, advertisements and bonuses for drivers who bring in new recruits, says Reeves.
“We don’t want to overhire though, because we want to be able to provide enough work for the O/Os we do have,” Reeves says.
Reeves is confident Canadian truckers will be attracted by the company’s high transborder rates, paid in U.S. dollars, its credentials as a Free and Secure Trade partner (FAST) and its willingness to cover the cost of new O/Os becoming FAST-approved as well.
“We’ll take them through the application process and we’ll pay their fee to join as well,” says Reeves.
Freight capacity is high and drivers are at a premium, especially for U.S. carriers, Reeves admits. And the largest carriers – the ones most likely to be carrying transborder shipments, are the ones being hit hardest, according to the American Trucking Associations chief economist Bob Costello. Recently Costello reported line-haul driver turnover for America’s largest truckload carriers (those with a minimum $30 million annual revenue) hit a whopping 121 per cent in the third quarter of 2004, up from 116 per cent in the second quarter.
And while small truckload carriers saw driver turnover fall from 84 per cent in the second quarter to 79 per cent in the third quarter, both ended the year with fewer drivers than they started with.
Add to that a cumulative truck tonnage increase of 6.5 per cent in November 2004, over the same 11-month period in 2003, as well as a prediction by Costello that the tonnage increase trend will continue into 2005, and you have a problem. The kind of problem that forces U.S. carriers to send recruiters to Canada.
So are Canadian carriers, who themselves are no strangers to trucker shortages and turnovers, worried they’ll lose drivers and O/Os to the lure of American dollars and recruitment campaigns?
“Companies have been coming across the border for a long time, ” says Dan Einwechter, president of Challenger Motor Freight.
In short, Einwechter is not worried.
Neither is Rob Penner, vice-president of operations for Bison Transport.
Past experience leads Penner to believe that those who succumb to “the new guy phenomena” and go off to work for U.S. carriers will soon return to the Canadian fold.
As for the U.S. sawbuck versus the Canadian dollar, neither Penner nor Einwechter are particularly worried.
“The U.S. dollar isn’t worth much more than the Canadian dollar anymore,” says Einwechter.
Penner adds getting enough miles is more of an issue.
Still, both Penner and Einwechter acknowledge Canadian carriers must treat their drivers well if they don’t want to lose them to American companies.
“We will all have something to worry about if we don’t look after our drivers,” says Penner.
Hi, I am a Windsor ON, based driver with 10 yrs of exp, fast card and clean record, border crossing almost daily.
Pls advise if u are still hiring o/o and what year model trucks you hire. Do you have home daily runs ? And how much do you pay per mile, U.S or CAD $.
Too bad canadian companies didnt pay better….
44 year old owner op is wondering if any company is willing to sponsor me to work in USA. Have 15 years in oilfield industry and rest on hwy pulling various trailers. Clean record with zero accidents and etc.