BUSINESS + ECONOMY
Walmart to start paying truck drivers an average of $87,500 a year
Jan 24, 2019, 2:57 PM
Walmart is promising its truck drivers an average salary of $87,500 a year. (Photo: Walmart / Flickr / Creative Commons)
(Photo: Walmart / Flickr / Creative Commons)
If you’re looking for pay raise and you know how to keep your wheels on the road, you might consider giving a call to Walmart. America’s most popular chain is looking to hire hundreds of new truck drivers, and they’re cranking their pay up to an average of $87,500 a year.
The announcement comes in the middle of a nationwide truck driver shortage. With home deliveries on the rise and millennials reluctant to spend their lives hauling a big rig down the highway, our nation, according to the American Trucking Associations, needs another 51,000 drivers to fill the shipping companies’ demands.
Walmart seems to be hoping that their increased wages will be enough motivation to bring that new blood in, at least as far their business is concerned.
Drivers aren’t guaranteed $87,500 a year, a salary that the company describes an estimated average. Instead, they’re paid 89 cents for every mile they drive and given a bonus for every delivery they finish. When all those numbers get added up at the end of the year, however, Walmart says most drivers will be seeing an annual salary that nearly reaches six figures.
Even if you miss a few deliveries, though, Walmart’s fleet can count on getting far more than the average truck driver. The median salary for truck drivers, according the U.S. Labor Department, is $40,000 a year; not even half what Walmart is offering.
The company won’t just be accepting anybody who washed up from off the street, however. To join the team, an applicant will have to have 30 months of trucking experience over the past three years and a clean safety record.
Anyone interested in joining Walmart’s fleet can apply here.
Our listeners share their stories
Even at $87,500 a year, truck driving isn’t an easy life. KSL Newsradio’s Dave & Dujanovic invited listeners to call in and share their experiences working as truck drivers, and they told us that there’s no such thing as a 40-hour work week when you’re behind the wheel of a truck.
“You’re only home two days a month,” one truck driver texted in. “It’s perfect if you hate your wife and kids.”
If you missed the show live, you can still catch everything they said on the Dave & Dujanovic podcast.
