Watch Now


Schneider National to raise drivers’ per-mile pay by 4 cents

Announcement follows $15 million in driver investments during 2020

Several carriers have raised driver pay (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Schneider National (NYSE: SNDR) announced late Wednesday that it will raise driver pay next year. The press release said many of the company’s drivers will earn up to an additional 4 cents per mile starting Jan. 24. The pay increase applies to driver associates in both the company’s solo and team fleets.

The Green Bay, Wisconsin-based transportation and logistics provider said the increase follows several initiatives totaling nearly $15 million made on behalf of its drivers in 2020. Those efforts included the addition of six paid holidays, raising truck speeds to 65 mph from 63 and a weekly program guaranteeing pay for inexperienced drivers.

The press release said equipment, technology and facilities investments, many of which are “focused on driver productivity, comfort and safety,” will continue.

“We are committed to rewarding company drivers for the safe and professional work they do to excite our customers,” said Schneider transportation and logistics head Dave Geyer. “Our focus is on making Schneider driving careers the best in the industry. Pay is certainly a component, among many other areas that we are continually upgrading.”


The increase follows several recent announcements from other carriers.

On Monday, Frozen Food Express (FFE) announced a 25% increase for new linehaul solo company drivers, with team linehaul drivers seeing a 20% pay increase. The same day, Anderson Trucking Service (ATS) announced a guaranteed pay program for the first 12 weeks a new driver is on board. Flatbed operators will be guaranteed pay of $5,400 for each four-week period, up to 12 weeks, with new dry van drivers receiving a $5,200 guarantee.

Last week, C.R. England bumped pay by up to 25% and Covenant (NASDAQ: CVLG) implemented its largest pay increase in company history. Stevens Transport increased driver compensation by as much as 14% in November, with Heartland Express (NASDAQ: HTLD) taking comp up as much as 12%.

Schneider announced an increase in team driver pay earlier this year. The company’s website lists top earning potential at $80,000 annually for dry van drivers and $96,000 for team drivers.


“We are proud of the incredible performance of our drivers every day, but especially during the extraordinary conditions of 2020,” continued Geyer. “Ultimately, it’s this service that our customers value the most, and we are rewarding the drivers who provide excellent customer service.”

Click for more FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden.

7 Comments

  1. Victoria

    Wow. Schneider. We were team drivers. Husband and wife. During the recession they took our holiday pay and 2 cents per mile from us stating that they did it so they would not have to lay off any drivers. It took them until 2020 to finally give back to the drivers what they robbed from us.
    Don Schneider was a fine man. He would be so disappointed to know how poorly the drivers were treated for years after he passed away. He said this “ without our drivers we would have nothing”.
    It’s to bad it took all these years to finally start taking care of your drivers Schneider. We quit driving for them for multiple reasons. Most people treat their pets better then this company was treating their drivers. They are finally realizing this now. I’m quite sure many excellent drivers with stellar driving records got out. Both of us had over 1.5 million safe driving miles when we quit.

  2. Alexander T Bernier

    All of those companies are a joke 😂 Schneider was at 0.39 a mile.. for air immortal .. What’s that going to help.. And C.R England.. teams you were at 0.25 the split ( in teams)!..

  3. Barbara

    Congrats to all company drivers. You deserve more money. Companies should also reward their independent contractors with increased percentage pay.

    1. Victoria

      Yes. It takes years on a waiting list or you have to know someone to get a driving job with the teamsters. I knew someone on a waiting list for 10 years for Chrysler before she got the call.

Comments are closed.

Todd Maiden

Based in Richmond, VA, Todd is the finance editor at FreightWaves. Prior to joining FreightWaves, he covered the TLs, LTLs, railroads and brokers for RBC Capital Markets and BB&T Capital Markets. Todd began his career in banking and finance before moving over to transportation equity research where he provided stock recommendations for publicly traded transportation companies.