Survey: 50% of trucking companies say most new drivers quit within 6 months

According to a survey of trucking companies conducted by DriveriQ, 90 percent of new hires decide whether to quit or stay within the first six months and overall, 33 percent do quit within that same six-month period.    Half of the trucking companies surveyed for a recent study said that the majority of new hires quit within six months, according to DriveriQ, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based consumer reporting agency.
   In its latest quarterly Trends in Truckload Recruitment and Retention Survey, which was publicly released Aug. 31, DriveriQ said it found that 90 percent of new hires decide whether to quit or stay within the first six months and that overall, 33 percent of new hires do quit within that same six-month period.
   The survey indicates that retaining new employees is still a serious problem for the trucking industry.
   “In fact, 54 percent of all records stored with DriveriQ were with the company for less than six months. An astonishing 71 percent were with the company for less than one year,” the report states.
   However, “If trucking companies can keep an employee past one year, they stand a pretty good chance of developing a long-term employee,” the report added.
   DriveriQ said it found that if the trucking industry can keep a new hire over one year, it generally has a chance of keeping that person for three to five years.
   “We have seen no data that tracks the retention rate of millennials, even though trucking companies – like other industries — are struggling to figure out how to attract and retain them,” the study states. “But before the industry can begin to solve the retention issue, it must come up with a common, agreed manner to measure retention. Then it can determine cost of retention and, therefore, the true cost of driver turnover.  It is only with a standardized way to measure retention that the industry can proactively improve and manage retention.”
   Driver iQ, which provides background screening and driver monitoring services to the trucking industry, maintains an industry driver employment database.
   It says the purpose of its latest report is to begin an industry-wide dialogue regarding the benchmarking of data needed to support retention efforts.