Trucker shortages in the transportation sector are linked to federal marijuana testing mandates argues one Wells Fargo analyst.
Top Wells Fargo analyst Chris Harvey, says that there’s one main reason for rising costs and worker shortages in the transportation sector: federal marijuana criminalization and resulting drug testing mandates that persist even as more states enact legalization.
“If you’ve listened to one conference call or a thousand conference calls, what have you heard? Logistics, transportation costs, trucker costs all going higher and that’s going to continue to occur,” said Harvey, who serves as head of equity strategy at Wells Fargo Securities.
“And the reason being is very simple. And some of you know this and some, this may be new,” Harvey said on a conference call last week, which was first noted by CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla . “It’s really about drug testing. We’ve legalized marijuana in some states but, obviously, not all but some. And what you have as a trucker is you have a federal mandate for drug testing.”
Federal transportation law stipulates that safety sensitive jobs like trucking require drug testing policies.
Because of the mandate for truckers, “we’re excluding a significant portion of that trucker industry,” Harvey explained. “And so, it’s going to make a very tight market even worse.”
The New York Post reported last year that more than 72,000 truck drivers were taken off the roads since January 2020 due to positive THC tests.
