The hauling and delivery industry employs 3.2 million people in the US. Trucking is the number one job in 28 states.
There’s a current shortage of truckers. Demand is so great these days (thanks to ecommerce), the US could use another 50,000 drivers, and that number will increase to 174,000 by 2026, according to the American Trucking Associations.
But that’s not even half of it, as current truckers age out of the industry, new hires will have to fill their spots. That means a total of 900,000 drivers will need to be hired in the next decade to replace retiring drivers as well as meet future demand.
That is, unless automation wipes many of those jobs away. Companies ranging from Daimler (the world’s largest truck maker), to tech companies like Alphabet, to startups like Peloton Technology are racing to get to Level 5 self-driving trucks—the highest level of autonomy, one where a driver is no longer necessary.
If that happens, things will get very tricky for the millions of Americans who drive trucks. It’s been a reliably well-paying job, particularly for workers without a college degree. If trucking goes robotic, there are few industries that have the scale and pay to match trucking. Nursing and teaching would be possible candidates, but they require degrees and advanced training.
The key to unlocking autonomy has less to do with cruising down a bone-straight interstate for hundreds of miles, and much more to do with the “last-mile” question. How can computers account for city traffic, pedestrians, detours, and all the little things that make getting from point A to point B complicated?