Aging workforce reshaping supply chains, boosting demand for FreightTech

An aging workforce and President Donald Trump’s tariff policies have helped trigger a shift in domestic supply chains while jump-starting demand for freight-related technology, according to Charles Jackson, head of North America at ProGlove.

Munich-based ProGlove is a global provider of wearable scanner solutions. Jackson joined ProGlove in August, aiming to help expand the company’s North American footprint.

“We are reshoring. We are certainly part of it because we’re in that behavior of trying to optimize productivity, trying to optimize health and safety because of higher turnover, aging workforce, all those things that are making reshoring difficult,” Jackson told FreightWaves in an interview. “A trend we’re seeing is automotive distribution centers shift from the West to the Midwest, to the Chicago, Tennessee axle. In that movement, they’re rethinking the wearables, or they’re refreshing the scanning devices, rethinking the workflows. We invariably have some sort of role in that.”

ProGlove is seeing increasing demand in the U.S. for its wearable scanning solutions at factories for automakers such as Ford, Rivian, Toyota and Honda, Jackson said.

“Our clients are very high-end … . [W]e would do every Ford plant, and then the retooling of the Ford plants and Rivian are actually getting us further traction,” Jackson said. “So we have Rivian and Honda and Toyota, and we’re doing a proof of concept for Subaru. The reason they’re doing it … is the aging population, the aging staff, and the cycling going on. The aging staff is leaving, and the new people coming on are creating more turnover.”

There are 8 million job openings in the U.S. but only 6.8 million unemployed workers, according to a study published on Feb. 11 by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCC).

Factors contributing to the shortage of workers include people retiring or aging out of the workforce, slowing net legal immigration to the U.S., lack of access to child care, which limits female workers, and some people starting their own businesses, the USCC said.

“We have a lot of jobs but not enough workers to fill them. If every unemployed person in the country found a job, we would still have millions of open jobs,” wrote Stephanie Ferguson, USCC senior director, workforce and international labor policy.

In addition to global auto manufacturers, ProGlove’s clients include supply chain provider DHL, which uses ProGlove’s wearable bar code scanners in warehouse operations.

“The companies … want to anchor [the process] in bar codes,” Jackson said. “Anchoring means what tools you use to make this easy, from a training side, from a health and safety side, because wearables touch everything. Our road map is about helping companies optimize their workflows.”

Labor issues have been challenging the trucking and supply chain industry for the past several years, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS).

More than 24% of all U.S. commercial transportation workers in 2023 were over the age of 55 — slightly higher than the percentage of that age group employed across all industries 23%, BTS data shows. Trucking employed the largest share of workers over the age of 55 across all supply chain-related jobs at more than 38%.

Shoaib Makani, co-founder and CEO of Motive, said workforce and market trends are steering the transportation industry toward the need for technology focused on optimization and safety.

San Francisco-based Motive builds tools to help organizations that depend on physical operations improve safety, productivity and profitability, according to Makani.

“Every one of our product lines is growing at quite a high rate, and customers increasingly are buying multiple products out of the box,” Makani told FreightWaves in an interview. “They want motor fleet cards, fuel cards, fleet management solutions.”

Makani said he is also seeing increasing demand for sensors that monitor equipment and monitor truck drivers.

“I’d say the leading edge of the platform is really on the AI front,” Makani said. “These are AI dashcams that observe drivers, observe the road, monitor for unsafe behavior, and very accurately detect when there is unsafe behavior happening to alert that driver and put an end to it.”

In December, Motive announced that annual recurring revenue from its enterprise segment increased by 64% year over year. Motive’s customers include FedEx Freight, CRH Canada, CoolSys, Inframark, Mavis Tires & Brakes, and Lumen.

The freight economy is improving and poised for growth in 2025, according to Makani.

“I think the outlook for the trucking industry is definitely more promising, both because of the macro but also because of the technology decisions that these companies are making,” he said.

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