Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse Has Trucking Industry Looking for New Hires

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will make their Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse mandatory as of January 6, 2020. While one of the goals of the database is to make the trucking industry safer and free of people driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse has many carriers bracing themselves for an initial shortage of drivers.

How the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse Works

The Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse will contain information on professional truck drivers to track employees who have tested positive for substance abuse. The information will be gathered from spot checks, post-accident tests, and employment screening. Registered carriers will be able to search the database to look at the records of potential hires and existing employees to see if there are any violations. The FMCSA has programmed the database with state-by-state tracking, so if a driver is caught with a substance violation in one state and then applies for a job in another, carriers will be able to get a complete history of the applicant. Potential employers will be unable to search the database without a driver’s consent, but for a driver to give consent they must be registered in the database. While the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse has been operational since October, carriers will be required to update the database with any notifications of drug and alcohol tests in January of next year.

The Impact on the Driver Pool and Hiring

Once the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse is in full effect, carriers are expecting to lose drivers who have been flagged for substance use. Since the hiring process will bee more stringent, trucking companies are positioning themselves to scout out new talent ahead of any personnel losses. To do this, trucking companies of all sizes are building up capital specifically for hiring new drivers in 2020 to mitigate a driver shortage. Since taking out loans to bolster the driver pool is cost-ineffective, trucking companies are using freight factoring to improve cash flow and build up reserves to cover the costs of hiring as they come, instead of holding off on hiring new drivers for a month or more while they wait for payments from their clients.

Single Point Capital provides fast, efficient, and transparent freight factoring services to trucking companies of all sizes. If you are trying to position your trucking company to hire more drivers and need a source of working capital to scout out new talent, contact the team at Single Point Capital today and ask about our factoring programs.