Population shift will soon drive trucking tidal wave, an expert says
This week, we present an article by another trucking industry expert and colleague of Bob Rutherford: Jason Cannon. Jason reports here on a keynote speech given by Ken Gronbach on the shifts of industry in “Population shift will soon drive trucking tidal wave, an expert says.”
Author, demographer, and generational marketer Ken Gronbach delivered the keynote address Monday morning at the Truckload Carriers Association annual convention in Nashville.
A freight trough that has plagued trucking since emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic is temporary, and recovery will be spurred by the largest housing, construction and consuming market in U.S. history, said author, demographer and generational marketer Ken Gronbach in his delivery of the keynote address Monday morning at the Truckload Carriers Association annual convention in Nashville.
There are currently 170 million people under the age of forty in the U.S.
“This is a record for our country,” Gronbach said, adding that trucking is a business of moving stuff, and the need to move stuff “is coming your way, and you better prepare for it.”
Generation X is nine million people smaller than the Baby Boomer generation, pulling a tide of would-be workers and consumers out of the pool and helping cripple the housing market and the automotive market in the early 2000s. As those 170 million mature and participate in the economy, “what is going to happen to the United States is unprecedented,” Gronbach said.
“The bad news is, you have to change,” Gronbach added, noting that legacy business practices are unlikely to win over a consumer base that makes decisions based on three key factors: “Make my life easy. Save me some time. Don’t rip me off.”
Staring down the barrel of a hotly and, at times ugly, presidential election cycle, Gronbach said math suggests liberals will win the political wrestling matches in the immediate future simply because there are more of them by several million, adding that people generally move from liberal to conservative as they age.
“We’re losing a conservative every eight seconds,” he said, “and we’re gaining a liberal every eight seconds.”
Not only is the population base skewing younger, its racial and cultural makeup is shifting.
The generational population gap between Baby Boomers and Generation X was filled by Latinos, and Latinos are currently driving the U.S. labor force, Gronbach said, adding Caucasians are now a minority in the U.S., and the level of immigration into the U.S. is as high as it was in the early 1900s.