
From The Forestry Source, August 2019. © 2019, The Society of American Foresters Timber Industry Faces Shortage of Log Truckers By Steve Wilent The first item listed in the Forest Resources Association’s June 27 Southcentral and Southeastern Regions Activity Report was startling: “It is estimated that the truck driver shortage is resulting in a 10% to 15% loss of logging production currently. Multiple industries compete for drivers, and good, reliable trucking is very expensive.” Rick Meyer, Appalachian and southwide regions manager for the association, said that the production- loss figures are anecdotal, but very real. “I would say that just about every logging or trucking contractor that I’ve talked with who has, say, five trucks or more, has had at least one of those trucks idled at one time or another over the past year due to the driver shortage,” Meyer said. “For the majority of our members all across the country, trucking challenges are their number one issue by far, both from the logging end and probably from the mill as well.” The shortage of drivers in the US is affecting all industries that rely on trucking. A March 2, 2019, article in Fortune, “America’s Trucker Shortage Is About to Hit Consumers Where It Hurts,” notes that US companies “are sounding the alarm that higher freight fees could be passed on to consumers of everything from Crest toothpaste to Arm & Hammer cat litter to My Little Pony figurines. And it’s all because transport companies can’t find drivers.” In the forest-products industry,…