Tight Supply Of Truckers Leaves A Few Gas Stations Dry

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/ [login to see] /tight-supply-of-truckers-leaves-a-few-gas-stations-dry
Dave Samuelson is totally thrilled with his new job driving a fuel truck to deliver gasoline to stations around Chattanooga, Tenn.

He gets to go home to his farm every night, unlike long-haul trucking where you can drive for days. That means he can feed his goats. He can't complain about the pay — especially since he got a nearly 40% pay increase this year.

And he certainly loves how easy it is to find work right now. If you have the right kind of commercial driver's license, he says, "Good lord ... you can write your own ticket."

This is what it looks like to be at the heart of one of America's big pandemic labor crunches.

The companies that transport fuel to gas stations are scrambling to find qualified drivers to deliver every shipment. And this year, because they can't find enough drivers in places like Colorado, Iowa, and the Pacific Northwest, a scattering of gas stations have briefly run dry.

The outages weren't prolonged or widespread, but a hiccup in such an essential supply chain can be worrying — not to mention odd, given that there's no shortage of gasoline in the country.