As the population continues to grow, garbage collection and disposal become increasingly essential for the public. Unfortunately, this growing demand is not being met and we’re experiencing a truck driver shortage in the waste industry.
While the truck driver shortage intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, recent data shows the problem has evolved into a long-term structural challenge. In 2026, the global trucking industry is still facing a widening labor gap driven by demographic shifts, changing worker expectations, and increasing competition from more technologically advanced fleets. For waste management companies, this means retention, not just recruitment, has become the defining issue.
Why is it so hard to find drivers, and how can your business increase truck driver retention? This article discusses the reasons for the shortage and provides solutions on how to retain drivers.
The truck driver shortage in the waste industry has become a persistent workforce challenge driven by structural, demographic, and economic factors. While the issue gained national attention during the pandemic, recent data shows that hiring and retaining qualified drivers remains difficult across both public and private solid waste operations.
The truck driver shortage is a global workforce crisis. As of 2025, more than 3.6 million truck driver positions remain unfilled across 36 major countries, and industry forecasts suggest this gap could double within the next few years if current trends continue.
Recent surveys also point to a growing “trucker exodus.” In 2025, nearly 47% of active drivers reported they are actively seeking new jobs, up 7% from late 2024. This level of churn places a huge strain on waste hauling operations.
There is a significant demographic imbalance in the industry. Approximately 31.6% of drivers are now over the age of 55. Younger drivers (under 25) make up just 6.5% of the workforce. By 2029, an estimated 3.4 million drivers are expected to retire, creating a significant need for new drivers.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the driver shortage, but its most significant legacy has been a permanent shift in driver expectations and waste generation patterns. In 2026, the industry is operating in a reshaped landscape.
The Great Resignation of 2021–2022 saw a record 50.5 million people quit their jobs in the US alone. While the surge of voluntary quits slowed by late 2024, the "mass exodus" permanently changed the labor pool. Drivers today are not just looking for a paycheck; they are seeking what was missing during the pandemic: job security, mental health support, and a better work-life balance. 2025 surveys indicate that nearly 47% of current drivers are still actively looking for new roles that offer more predictable schedules and better equipment.
One of the most lasting impacts of the pandemic is the shift to remote and hybrid work. With more people working from home, residential waste streams have seen a sustained increase:
Aside from mass resignations and retirements, waste management companies face intensifying competition for drivers from across the broader transportation and logistics landscape. E-commerce growth, changing freight patterns, and expanding last-mile delivery services mean that drivers today have more choices than ever before – and many of those choices offer different pay structures, schedules, and work-life trade-offs.
A major factor is the continued boom in e-commerce and delivery demand. The surge in online shopping has expanded roles for cargo vans, box trucks, and short-haul routes, which can offer more predictable schedules and higher flexibility than traditional waste or long-haul trucking work. These delivery-oriented positions often compete for the same pool of CDL and commercial drivers that waste fleets depend on.
Other industries are also attracting CDL-qualified workers with different lifestyle incentives, such as construction logistics, dedicated regional freight roles, and private fleet positions that emphasize stable home time and predictable pay. Many drivers increasingly prioritize jobs that minimize long absences from home – a trend that negatively impacts sectors like waste management that traditionally involve early starts, physically demanding routes, and variable schedules.
Pay and working conditions also shape driver decisions. While delivery and last-mile roles may not always pay higher base wages than heavy truck positions, the perception of improved work-life balance, shorter routes, and less physical strain makes them appealing alternatives. Meanwhile, sectors like waste management, which historically have been slower to upgrade equipment and workflows, may struggle more to recruit and retain drivers without investments in technology and scheduling flexibility.
In short, the waste industry is competing with a wide range of transportation-oriented employers.
Although the pandemic played a major role in early workforce disruption, today’s drivers are leaving for different reasons. Recent 2025 data shows that retention challenges are now driven by quality-of-life factors rather than wages alone.
Work-life balance is the top concern. Nearly 70% of drivers seeking new roles say improved home time is their primary motivator, reflecting fatigue with long, unpredictable shifts.
Pay structure has also shifted in importance. About 64.7% of drivers now prioritize predictable pay over higher but inconsistent earnings, especially amid economic uncertainty and rising living costs.
Equipment quality is another decisive factor. Roughly 42.3% of drivers actively look for better, more modern trucks when choosing an employer. Drivers view updated equipment as essential for safety, comfort, and long-term health.
These trends make it clear that retention strategies must extend beyond compensation and address day-to-day driver experience.
With so many industry challenges, what can you do to retain garbage truck drivers? Here are some solutions you can consider implementing to ensure your drivers are satisfied:
Compensation is an important factor when it comes to employee retention. There is a direct link between higher pay and higher retention rates. Research shows 37% of workers who left their jobs in 2021 cited low pay as the primary reason.
Competitiveness in the trucking industry has given workers the power to expect better pay. As a result, it has become necessary for waste collection companies to offer competitive wages in order to retain workers.
Apart from offering higher wages, you can offer other perks to help with retention. These include flexible scheduling, medical benefits, and retirement plans. Such benefits improve morale among drivers and increase their loyalty to the company.
Today, employees are more concerned with their workplace safety than ever before. To prevent accidents in the garbage collection industry, companies must take steps to ensure the safety of their drivers on the job.
Here are some tips to enhance the safety of your drivers:
Operating your business efficiently reduces the workload for drivers and helps keep your waste hauling business competitive. Operation management ensures the quick and efficient loading of trash trucks, leading to the timely completion of services.
To ensure smooth operations, it's important to have a well-organized and efficient system in place. Here are some tips to help streamline your operations:
Garbage collection is physically demanding. Automation can help reduce the physical strain for drivers and increase retention rates. While technologies such as robotic side-loading require a large initial investment, they reduce the physical demands of loading and unloading freight. This technology also reduces the risk of injury as drivers can stay in the cab and use a mechanical arm to move containers.
In the last few years, the role of technology in driver retention has expanded. More waste management companies are using advanced software and AI for predictive analytics, allowing them to identify traffic patterns, seasonal waste surges, and inefficient routes before they impact drivers. This reduces unnecessary mileage, fatigue, and stress. Real-time updates on issues, routes, and schedules can ensure that drivers are working as efficiently as possible. This can reduce stress and wasted time on the job, which can improve driver satisfaction.
Telematics-driven safety programs have also become a retention tool. In 2025, fleets using driver scorecards to reward safe driving behavior reported a 28% improvement in driver performance and a 13% reduction in severe safety alerts, helping drivers feel both safer and more valued.
Trash truck drivers work long hours and take many solitary journeys. Allowing them more time to spend with their families, pursue hobbies, or take on additional work is a great way to retain them and help them stay motivated.
Providing your truck drivers flexible hours, such as shift pickups or full-time positions that offer weekends off, can make a big difference in their work experience.
Another way to minimize the impact of the driver shortage on your waste hauling operation is to use a good waste management solution like Basestation.
Waste management software is designed to simplify operations for waste haulers. It allows you to manage your business from a centralized place, tracking trucks and assets in real-time while keeping accurate records of routes and pickups.
By streamlining time-consuming tasks and administrative work, waste management software optimizes productivity. In doing so, it enables you to manage your operations better, prevent strain on your driver workforce, and do more with fewer employees so that you can better navigate the driver shortage crisis.
Managing fleet operations manually is quite taxing and can minimize output. Fleet management solutions help you stay competitive by ensuring your fleet runs optimally and efficiently.
These systems can provide real-time vehicle tracking, giving you detailed insights into the performance of each truck in your fleet. This means you can make informed decisions about where to reallocate resources or when to replace an aging truck.
They also make communication and collaboration easy for drivers. Through driver apps, drivers can receive instructions and updates in real-time, reducing the need for paperwork, back-and-forth text messages, and distracting calls while on the job.
Having an efficient route mapped with real-time data improves efficiency and saves you time and money in the long run.
Waste management software with route optimization for garbage trucks ensures that your drivers are always on the best routes possible. With it, your drivers can avoid getting stuck in traffic jams, taking wrong turns, or driving back-and-forth unnecessarily. It maps out the quickest, and most direct routes for collections so that drivers can get their jobs done more efficiently.
Route optimization software is also a great tool for a greener future. It allows drivers to minimize their environmental impact by choosing the most energy-efficient routes.
Moreover, with real-time updates, you can modify routes as and when needed to ensure customer requirements are being met.
Garbage collection involves many time-consuming tasks, including driver management, scheduling, customer billing and invoicing, and more. Technology can streamline and even automate some of these tasks, thereby improving your bottom line.
For instance, waste management software enables you to set up driver schedules and routes in minutes rather than hours.
It can also automate your invoicing and billing process to reduce time spent on administrative tasks and ensure you get paid on time. In addition, it makes it easy to make adjustments to invoices on the fly to ensure customers are billed correctly.
A waste management solution like Basestation provides real-time updates and notifications. These notifications are important as they instantly alert dispatchers to issues that need to be addressed and enable them to keep track of the status of each driver’s collections.
Drivers can easily log updates on an app and receive notifications on route modifications, pickups, and more. This functionality saves a lot of time as there’s no need to write down information in a notebook, type out text messages, or make phone calls to provide status updates.
Driver retention is important now more than ever for waste management companies. With the right tools and strategies in place, you can ensure that your drivers are satisfied and that your operations can run smoothly despite the driver shortage.
Looking for a software solution that will help you save time and stay organized? Basestation is the perfect choice for all your waste management needs. Our software offers various features to help you manage drivers, vehicles, and operational costs more efficiently. Try it today!
