It was the perfect anecdote to whiz around the internet. A number of outlets, including
Newsweek, recently reported that a trucking company in Texas, Sisu Energy, is offering to pay truck drivers "14,000 a week — $728,000 a year" because of a "nationwide shortage of truckers." All you've got to do is go down to Texas and drive a truck for a couple of years, and you'll be a millionaire!
There's just one problem: "Those news stories flying around out there are very misleading and inaccurate," says Karrie Grundy, the director of recruiting for the company. For one thing, Sisu Energy does not pay salaries to its truckers. Its truckers are independent contractors who get paid by the load, which means to earn anything, drivers first have to get their own trucks and acquire the skills and certifications to haul "frac sand," a valuable sand used by fracking companies to blast oil and gas out of the ground. The most productive drivers, the company says, can bring in up to $14,000 a week. But with this money, they have to cover all the costs of their truck, fuel, insurance, equipment, repair and maintenance. Even if they're able to haul enough loads in the boom-and-bust oil fields of remote West Texas to earn $14,000, drivers take home much less.