Walmart, the country’s largest retailer, is trying to help alleviate the country’s truck driver shortage. It’s increasing the starting salary to $110,000 for those interested in long-distance hauling in the company’s vehicles.
Drivers with previous work experience working for Walmart can earn more based on their employment tenure and location.
Walmart, which currently has about 12,000 workers who drive its company-owned trucks, said the average company driver’s pay was $87,500. It hired 4,500 new drivers in 2021, the most in Walmart’s history.
The median pay for heavy truck and tractor-trailer drivers in 2020 was $47,130 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Last year, the industry was short a record 80,000 drivers, according to the American Trucking Associations, a trade group.
As a further incentive, Walmart will also pay for a driver’s cost of earning a commercial driver’s license—$4,000 to $5,000.
Walmart’s recruitment plan occurs during the country’s worsening truck driver shortage, which is worsening supply-chain snags and making it harder to get products onto store shelves.
To become a Walmart driver, applicants must have some qualifications under their belt. The company requires that drivers have an Interstate (Class A) Commercial Driver’s License with HAZMAT endorsement or receipt of HAZMAT endorsement within 120 days of being hired. Job candidates must also have a clean driving record with no serious traffic or moving violations within the last three years.
Walmart screens for DUI, DWI, OUI (operating under the influence) or reckless driving involving alcohol or drug convictions within the last 10 years, as well as issues such as preventable accidents on the road.
Walmart said truck driver applications are available at drive4walmart.com.
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So now they have self driving trucks in Arizona. That’s where it going people. No rest stops no health Benefits need paid. Cheaper operating procedures.
You won’t keep that money all to yourself trust me you’ll get fat as hell or bad health because fast food will be your sexual partner the whole time.
Trucking companies love pay by mile because they can use it to force you to run till you drop dead and save them the trouble of buying you your gold watch or providing retirement benefits.
Slavery is alive and well in America.
Not to start, don’t expect more than $60k in your first two years. Also you won’t be home for that $60k
Heck with long haul. 130k, home every day and average 8.5hr day.
Exception to the rule with experience no doubt.
Where?
I have applied many times for wal mart but never been hired. Even though i have 20 plus years of expeience and an outstanding safety record they don’t consider me good enough.
That’s not to bad…so as a log truck we make around $130k a year. So seeing you guys getting that and a MacDonald employee making {bleeped} near $20/hr…I am in for a very substantial raise
Screw that! Go local. I haul gasoline fo $35 an hour at 5 12 hour days a week. Home every night and set schedules. Taking home about $7000 a month.
Last time I checked Walmart driving positions, they have considerable requirements for past recent experience and even though I was an active driver, I didn’t qualify. You mentioned they were paying for CDL training. Are they now accepting just-out-of-school drivers? I might need to re-apply.
Join the teamsters union you will get hired on with a company thats backed by teamsters unions and so is the driver too
There’s a reason why there’s a shortage of truck drivers, especially long-haul drivers who live in those cabs for weeks at a time. Year after year, trucking companies have experienced driver turnover rates from 100 to 300 percent per year. Think about that. What industry could survive losing all of their workers every year, or even twice or three times a year?
Find and read a book, “Sweatshops on Wheels” to learn why.
A typical long-haul driver is paid for mileage, not for hours worked. So long hours are spent waiting to unload at a shipper; waiting while being unloaded; and then waiting again for a new load. None of that work time in the truck counts for pay.
Add another insult: the miles driven are not the actual miles driven. Drivers call the pay mileage “bedbug miles” as pay miles from pickup to delivery is based industry-wide on the Rand-McNally “Household Movers Guide,” a table of distances.
FYI, WalMart hires only the cream of the crop, drivers they “poach.”
I know Wally USED to hire the “cream” (20 years ago for sure), but now things are different. Many companies used to be much pickier, but no more. Wally may still be a bit more picky than some but everyone is vying for the same CDL’s and in some cases that hasn’t worked out so well. Check out the Twisted Truckers FB page, and many others for evidence of less than professional drivers. Not to mention, the job is TOUGH!
That is purely sad! Thanks, Tommy. I’ve been out of it for a long time.
I’ve always suspected that the major corporations have the trucking industry gripped by the short & curlies, using their power to hold freight rates as low as possible. That is reflected in the “comic book” logbook practices of the past, not directly ordered by dispatchers but very strongly implied. I don’t know if new digital, satellite enforced logging has become standard. In older times, our QualComm minute-by-minute sat data collected by the company was zealously guarded from access by the DOT.
Wife & I refuse to drive freeways whenever alternate routes exist; both because the Interstates are falling to pieces, and too many drivers/truckers are either suicidal, homicidal, or clueless.
212-17-7014 retrieve lemon sos
Plus, Wal-Mart not allowed the driver takes a weekend off.
The new drivers for Wal-Mart would treated as extra drivers for the first year. That’s mean these drivers have no permanent truck to keep until they’re out of the extra program.
Yes, slip seating does happen. But I do get weekends off occasionally. I work 6 on 2 off. And it rotates. Considering I hadn’t had a weekend off in over 6 year’s, it is nice. They pay hub miles, so that negates Rand McNally. Even we have wait time occasionally, but after 45 minutes we start getting paid by the hour. Breakdown pay starts immediately. All kinds of activity pay. I work between 67 to 69 hours in my 6 days.
Walmart is sub par for a driver with 3 years lean experience me
Heck for that kind of money I’d ALMOST consider coming out of retirement. Especially since I was given a ride in a Walmart rig a few years ago. They are NICE, even have automatic transmissions.
Sean,
If you watch the life of a trucker on a You Tube- you’ll probably change your mind. Trucking is part of life and things happen- sometimes bad things. In order to make a great income those people sacrifice. Watch as the featured trucker in one of these videos tries several times to discourage men from being drivers…for lots of reasons. Just thought you should know.