- C.R. England, one of the country's largest refrigerated-trucking companies, just gave its 6,500-plus truck drivers their second pay raise in the last year.
- The trucking company has invested $30 million in the last eight months toward truck-driver pay raises.
- Trucking and retail companies such as Walmart have been aggressively recruiting truck drivers amid a nationwide labor shortage.
Many of the truck drivers who bring your groceries across the country just got a pay raise.
C.R. England, one of the country's largest refrigerated-trucking companies, announced on Friday that all 6,500 of its truck drivers received a pay raise that day. The company didn't specify the amount of the raise.
In May 2018, C.R. England announced its largest pay jump since the company was founded in 1920.
Since May, the company has invested $30 million in truck-driver pay raises. "Raising pay is an indicator C.R. England is committed to providing our employees with a long-term career path they can count on financially," CEO Chad England said in the statement on Friday.
Trucking companies large and small across the country are overhauling the way they recruit, train, and pay truck drivers, as America faces a truck-driver shortage.
Last month, Walmart announced it would up the wages of its 8,000 company truck drivers. On the smaller end of the transportation spectrum, Smokey Point Distributing, based in Arlington, Washington, gave its drivers bonuses of $20,000-plus last year.
A lack of trucking labor has increased prices of everything from toothpaste to Amazon Prime. America will be short 175,000 truckers by 2026, according to the American Trucking Association.
To alleviate the trucker shortage, industry leaders have proposed ideas such as lowering the minimum truck-driving age to 18. But analysts say there's only one way to truly fix the trucker shortage — pay truck drivers more.
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