Employers around the world are facing significant labor shortages in key sectors such as the material handling industry and, more broadly, the global supply chain. The problem has been here for decades, worsened in the past couple years, and it’s not going away. Approximately 1.4 million US warehousing and transportation jobs were lost in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. But even as most of these jobs have been recovered, more than half a million warehousing and transportation sector jobs still remain unfulfilled, and the future outlook remains grim.
Many believe the labor shortage will become the new normal in the material handling space. According to Gad Levanon, Chief Economist at The Burning Glass Institute, younger people are gravitating away from these jobs, immigration to the US is plummeting, and the labor force participation rate among working-age people has lowered.
Recently, large employers such as UPS, CVS, Waste Management, and Amazon have increased wages and relaxed hiring standards as a way to expand the labor pool and fill open roles. This has served to increase costs, even as the problem continues to worsen.
One potential source of labor supply is to recruit from a more diverse group of workers, including people with physical disabilities and neurodiverse conditions such as autism.
Over 61 million adults in the US have a disability, and the unemployment rate for Americans with disabilities is about three times higher than that of people without disabilities. Overall, 44% of people with a disability reported some type of barrier to finding and engaging in employment, and according to the Center for American Progress, the disabled population sadly faces the worst employment outcomes among every demographic group.
Thus, there is significant untapped potential in the US economy for people that are living with a disability to participate in the labor force. Making warehouse work more accessible and attractive for this group could help alleviate labor shortages across the supply chain and logistics industry.
The potential for people with disabilities to participate in the workforce is significant. Overall, the population of people not in the labor force due to disability has nearly tripled since 1995, according to data from the Burning Glass Institute.
During a time when the logistics sector is experiencing a shortage of more than half a million material handling workers, remote operation technology is unlocking a new category of jobs that can be filled by people with disabilities.
Companies like Phantom Auto are providing remote operation technology that make remote work possible for warehouse workers, such as forklift driving. Remote operation removes barriers for workers with disabilities, extending the benefits of remote work into areas that traditionally have been closed off to them. Remote job opportunities for workers with disabilities in the supply chain and material handling industry will continue to grow as companies experience the benefits of remote operation, such as increased health and safety, labor accessibility, and productivity.
Phantom Auto specializes in remote operation of all logistics vehicles. Phantom’s human-centric interoperable solutions enable people to remotely supervise, assist, and drive vehicle fleets from up to thousands of miles away – including forklifts, robots, trucks, and more. By decoupling labor from location, the company increases labor access and retention, safety, productivity, and resilience across the supply chain. With Phantom, supply chain operators can tap into drivers from anywhere — connecting people who want to work with jobs that need to be filled. The company’s proprietary software delivers secure, low-latency communication over volatile wireless networks for reliable sensor streaming and safe vehicle control. For more information about Phantom, visit www.phantomauto.com.