Truck Driver Faces Job Scarcity in Ontario, California

ONTARIO, California — Just before 4 AM on a Tuesday, the darkness envelops Southern California, except for the glow of the freeway. Marshawn Jackson stirs in his bed and reaches for his iPhone.

He opens an app designed for truck drivers looking for assignments. The message he sees is both all too familiar and discouraging: “No jobs available.”

Mr. Jackson earns money based on his deliveries, meaning no jobs translate to no income. Although he has two assignments lined up for the day, the rest of the week is empty. Throughout the next 15 hours, he repeatedly refreshes the app, hoping to find more work — a seemingly pointless endeavor.

As he picks up an empty shipping container from a nearby storage yard, he refreshes the app. He does it again while driving down the freeway towards the Port of Los Angeles, skillfully balancing the wheel with one hand and his phone with the other.

He refreshes the app again after dropping off the empty container and a dozen more times while waiting for a crane to place another, fully loaded container filled with toys from Asian factories onto the chassis of his rig. He even refreshes while fueling his truck.

Sadly, every attempt yields the same result.

“There comes a point where you wonder, ‘Am I even making money?’” Mr. Jackson reflects. “Is it even worth getting up in the morning?”