Everyone’s talking about a driver shortage.
The reality is a little more complicated — and understanding the difference matters if you’re trying to keep freight moving in a market that increasingly feels like it’s playing by new rules.
It’s Not a Shortage. It’s a Reshuffling.
The drivers are out there. The trucks are out there. What’s changed is where they’re going.
Intermodal drayage, reefer, flatbed, over-the-road — these aren’t separate labor markets. They all draw from the same pool of licensed commercial drivers and available equipment. And in a free market, that capacity moves toward wherever rates are strongest.
When flatbed demand spikes and rates follow, carriers and owner-operators who have the flexibility to shift modes will. When reefer lanes get competitive, capacity migrates. The drivers aren’t disappearing — they’re recalibrating, just as any rational market participant would when better-paying work is available.
For shippers who rely on intermodal drayage, the effect can feel identical to a shortage: fewer available carriers, longer lead times, tighter capacity windows. But the cause is structural, not simply numerical. And that distinction changes how you respond to it.
The Musical Chairs Problem
Think of available truck capacity as a fixed number of chairs. The music plays — demand shifts, rates fluctuate, modes compete — and when it stops, whoever locked in capacity early has a seat.
Shippers who rely on annual RFQ cycles to set rates and lock in carrier relationships are playing this game on a delay. By the time the music stops, the carriers who could have moved their freight have already committed that capacity elsewhere — to lanes and modes that offered better margin. The shipper is left standing.
This isn’t a failure of planning. It’s a structural feature of how the transportation market works right now. The competition for truck power across modes is real, it’s intensifying, and the traditional procurement calendar wasn’t designed for it.
Understanding why capacity is moving is the easy part. What to actually do about it is the harder — and more useful — question. That’s part two.