Behind the Wheel: Why Minnesota Needs More Truck Drivers, and What MBM Is Doing About It

This Labor Day weekend, as families along the bluffs in Winona fire up one last grill before the season turns, another shift is already underway a few blocks over. Drivers are pulling into the yard, checking trailers, and getting ready for the pre-harvest freight surge that hits southeastern Minnesota every September, when grain elevators, food processors, and manufacturers all start competing for the same trucks at once. It is a fitting week to talk about the people behind the wheel, because the industry that keeps Minnesota's shelves, farms, and factories running is short on exactly that: drivers. Labor Day exists to recognize the workers who keep the country moving, and in this corner of the Midwest, that recognition belongs squarely to the men and women logging hours on I-90, Highway 61, and every county road in between.

1. A Shortage That Is Nationwide

The American Trucking Associations has tracked the driver shortage closely for years. At ATA's 2023 Management Conference, Chief Economist Bob Costello reported the shortfall had eased to roughly 60,000 drivers, down from a record high near 81,000 two years earlier. But ATA's own testimony to Congress that same year projected the industry will still need to hire 1.2 million new drivers over the coming decade just to keep pace with retirements and freight growth, with the shortage climbing toward 160,000 by 2031 if current trends hold. Why it matters: freight volumes do not pause for a tight labor market. Every open seat in a cab means a load that moves slower, a route that gets rerouted, or a shipment that costs more to cover.

2. The Gap Close to Home

Minnesota feels this directly, not just as a national statistic. The Minnesota Trucking Association has cited a shortfall of roughly 8,000 drivers statewide, and state labor data from the Department of Employment and Economic Development ranks heavy and tractor-trailer driver among the top ten most in-demand occupations out of more than 560 tracked in Minnesota, with one of the highest projected numbers of openings over the next decade. This is not an abstract trend line on a spreadsheet in St. Paul. It is empty seats at yards from Winona to Rochester to the Twin Cities, and routes that need covering every single week.

3. An Aging Workforce

DEED data spanning two decades shows the driver workforce graying fast: drivers age 65 and older grew from about 3 percent of the workforce in 2003 to nearly 9 percent today, while drivers age 55 to 64 grew from 13 percent to 23 percent over the same span. Why it matters: a generation of experienced drivers, the ones who trained the next generation and know every back road and dock in the region, is heading toward retirement faster than new drivers are entering the industry. That is exactly the gap MBM is working to close through training and recruiting, rather than waiting for it to close itself. Pairing newer drivers with seasoned mentors, and giving new CDL holders real seat time before sending them out solo, is a slower way to grow a driver roster, but it is the way that produces drivers who stick around.

4. Pay Is Moving in the Right Direction

Minnesota drivers are not underpaid relative to the rest of the country. DEED puts the state's median trucking wage at $28.11 an hour, well above the national median of $24.97. Carriers that want to keep good drivers are competing on more than just the rate per mile now. Sign-on bonuses, predictable home time, and steady freight lanes matter just as much to a driver deciding where to park a CDL, especially after a couple of lean years in freight rates statewide.

5. A More Diverse Road Ahead

The driver pool is also changing shape. ATA's national workforce data shows women made up about 8 percent of drivers as of its most recent count, marking the seventh consecutive annual increase, with Black, Hispanic, and Latino drivers also representing a growing share of the workforce. A wider recruiting net, reaching people who might never have considered trucking a decade ago, is one of the more practical ways the industry has found to close a shortage that will not be solved by any single fix.

6. Technology Is Lowering the Barrier

Part of what keeps drivers on the road, and attracts new ones, is not having to fight the paperwork and guesswork that used to define the job. ELD systems, real-time telematics, and dash-cam technology cut down on disputes, streamline Hours-of-Service tracking, and give dispatch better visibility so drivers spend less time waiting at a dock and more time moving. A job that runs smoother day to day is simply an easier job to recruit for and an easier one to stay in for the long haul. For a generation of drivers who grew up with a smartphone in hand, that matters more than it might have a decade ago, when the job was sold on toughness alone rather than on how well it fit into a normal life.

7. The MBM Difference

MBM Logistics is built around the idea that a driver's time matters as much as a customer's freight. That shows up in a few concrete ways:

- Regional truckload and LTL lanes across Minnesota and the upper Midwest, meaning more predictable routes and more nights at home than a coast-to-coast haul offers

- Modern, well-maintained equipment paired with the kind of dash-cam and telematics technology that protects drivers as much as it protects freight

- A dispatch team that treats communication as a two-way street instead of a one-way radio

- A safety program built to keep both the truck and the paycheck steady, mile after mile

Recruiting in a tight market is not just about filling a seat. It is about building a place drivers choose to stay for years, not months.

8. What This Means for Minnesota

The freight has to move regardless of how many hands are on deck to move it. Every trip a grain elevator, a food manufacturer, or a distribution center depends on comes down to a driver willing to show up, know the route, and get it there safely. As Minnesota heads into its busiest freight months of the year, the carriers that invest in their drivers now, through pay, training, technology, and home time, are the ones that will keep the state's supply chains running smoothly through harvest and into winter. That is true whether the freight is a truckload of fertilizer headed to a farm outside Winona or an LTL pallet making its last-mile stop at a Rochester clinic supplier. Somebody still has to drive it there.

This Labor Day, MBM Logistics is proud to recognize the drivers who keep Minnesota moving, and is always looking for more who want to make trucking a career, not just a job. Reliable. Responsible. Ready. That is the MBM promise, mile after mile.

Sources: American Trucking Associations (trucking.org, 2023 driver shortage report and Congressional testimony); Minnesota Trucking Association; Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) workforce data.