A drayage company posts a job listing for a Port Miami container driver. CDL Class A required, TWIC card, clean MVR, two years experience. The listing stays up for six weeks. Three people apply. One doesn't have a TWIC. One fails the drug test. The third takes a long-haul gig that pays more per mile. The truck sits idle, and the containers keep stacking up at the terminal.
The Shortage by the Numbers
The American Trucking Associations estimated a national shortage of roughly 80,000 truck drivers at the end of 2025, and the number continues to climb. Drayage gets hit harder than other trucking sectors because the job has extra requirements that shrink the qualified pool.
A long-haul driver needs a CDL and a clean record. A drayage driver at Port Miami needs all of that plus a TWIC card ($125.25 fee, 8 to 12 week processing time), knowledge of terminal procedures at POMTOC and South Florida Container Terminal, chassis inspection skills, and the willingness to sit in port gate lines that can stretch past an hour during peak periods.
The average age of a commercial truck driver in the United States is 57. The pipeline of new CDL holders doesn't keep pace with retirements. For port drayage, the gap is wider because younger drivers tend to pick over-the-road jobs where they earn mileage pay without dealing with port congestion, detention time, or the cost of maintaining a TWIC.
Why Drivers Leave Drayage
Pay structure is the first issue. Most drayage drivers earn per-load rather than hourly. A round trip from Port Miami to a warehouse in Medley might pay $180 to $250. If the driver waits 90 minutes at the port gate and another hour at the warehouse dock, that $250 covers four hours of work, much of it spent sitting in a cab with the engine running.
Compare that to a local LTL route where a driver makes 15 stops, earns $250 to $300 per day, and never waits more than 20 minutes at any stop. Or an over-the-road gig paying $0.55 to $0.70 per mile with steady weekly miles. Drayage pay looks competitive on paper until you factor in unpaid wait time.
The result: experienced drayage drivers take their CDL to an Amazon warehouse, a FedEx Ground route, or a dedicated fleet contract. They keep the same license, drop the TWIC hassle, and earn predictable weekly income with benefits. Drayage companies train them, and other sectors hire them away.
Miami-Specific Problems
South Florida adds several layers to the national shortage.
Housing costs in Miami-Dade County have climbed every year since 2020. A drayage driver earning $55,000 to $70,000 per year competes for apartments with remote workers pulling six-figure salaries. Some drivers commute from Homestead or even further south, adding an hour to each end of the workday. Others relocate to cheaper markets and take trucking jobs there.
Traffic compounds the problem. A container move from Port Miami to a warehouse in Hialeah Gardens covers about 18 miles. During morning or afternoon rush, that drive takes 45 minutes to an hour on the Palmetto or I-95. The same distance on a Texas interstate takes 20 minutes. Miami drayage drivers complete fewer loads per day because they spend more time on congested roads between the port and delivery points.
Heat is another factor that gets overlooked. A driver climbing in and out of a truck cab, opening and closing container doors, and hooking chassis in 95-degree heat with 80% humidity tires out faster than the same work in Charlotte or Savannah. The physical toll pushes older drivers toward retirement earlier and makes younger prospects think twice about port work versus an air-conditioned cab on a long-haul run.
Immigration enforcement also plays a role. A portion of the South Florida workforce operates on work authorizations that require periodic renewal. Processing delays or policy changes can pull qualified drivers out of the pool for months at a time, even when the driver has years of clean service.
What This Means for Shippers
Fewer available drivers means longer wait times for container pickup. If you have cargo released at Port Miami on a Monday morning, a carrier with a full driver roster dispatches that afternoon. A carrier running short-staffed might not get to your container until Tuesday or Wednesday. Those extra days at the terminal mean demurrage charges that add $150 to $300 per day to your landed cost.
Rates climb when supply tightens. Miami drayage rates have increased 12% to 18% since 2024 depending on the lane, and carriers with enough drivers to guarantee same-day or next-day pickup charge a premium for it. Budget-conscious shippers who choose the cheapest carrier often find that "cheap" means a three-day wait for pickup and a demurrage bill that erases the savings.
Service quality also drops when carriers stretch thin rosters. Dispatchers assign drivers to maximum loads per day, which means less time for pre-trip inspections, rushed pickups, and more errors in container number verification or delivery instructions. A well-staffed carrier has margin for careful work.
What Carriers Are Doing About It
Some Miami drayage companies have raised per-load rates by 15% to 25% over the past two years and passed the increase directly to driver pay. Others offer signing bonuses of $2,000 to $5,000 for experienced port drivers with active TWIC cards.
A few carriers have shifted to hourly pay models for drayage, guaranteeing drivers $22 to $28 per hour regardless of how long they sit at the port gate. This solves the unpaid wait time problem and makes drayage pay competitive with local LTL and warehouse delivery routes. The trade-off: carriers charge shippers more per load to fund the hourly structure.
- TWIC sponsorship programs where the carrier covers the $125.25 application fee and helps with the TSA enrollment process
- CDL training partnerships with local driving schools, offering tuition reimbursement for new drivers who commit to 12 months of drayage work
- Weekend premium pay ($50 to $100 extra per load on Saturday) to staff Saturday terminal hours at Port Miami
- Equipment upgrades: newer trucks with better AC, air-ride seats, and in-cab amenities that make the daily grind more tolerable
Owner-operator retention is another focus area. Carriers that lease to owner-operators are offering fuel discounts, maintenance shop access, and faster settlement payments (weekly instead of biweekly) to keep independent drivers from switching to competing carriers or leaving drayage for long-haul work.
How Shippers Can Adapt
You can't fix the driver shortage. You can adjust your logistics operations to minimize its impact on your supply chain.
Book drayage capacity before your vessel arrives. If you wait until the container is released to call a carrier, you're competing with every other importer who did the same thing that morning. Pre-booking guarantees a truck and driver are assigned to your container before it hits the dock.
Flexible delivery windows help too. If your warehouse can receive containers between 6 AM and 6 PM instead of only 9 AM to 3 PM, carriers can route drivers around peak traffic and port congestion. Wider windows mean the carrier needs fewer drivers to cover the same number of loads.
- Pre-book drayage 48 to 72 hours before vessel arrival to lock in capacity
- Extend warehouse receiving hours to give carriers flexibility on scheduling
- Pay detention promptly and at fair rates so drivers don't avoid your facility
- Consolidate shipments when possible to reduce the number of individual container moves
- Build a relationship with one or two carriers rather than bid every load on a spot market
The last point matters most. Carriers with driver shortages prioritize their regular customers over spot loads. If you've been shipping 30 containers a month with the same carrier for two years, your containers get picked up before a one-time shipper who found the carrier on a load board. Consistency earns priority when trucks are scarce.
One A Trucks runs a retention-focused operation. Our drivers earn competitive per-load rates with paid detention, and we cover TWIC processing for new hires. The result: our roster stays full while other carriers scramble. Your containers get picked up when they're released, not when a driver becomes available three days later.