Shortage drives trucking firms to hire boomers

The Chicago Tribune

After 25 years riding a desk as an electrical supervisor, one man found his ticket to retirement adventure in the cab of a tractor trailer.

He said his brother is a truck driver, and he said that he could travel and make good money and stay in shape. He's been from Montana to Maine. But he wants to go south and farther west, and this is a good way to do it.

He is just the kind of eager recruit the trucking industry needs to help deal with a labor crisis. The shortage of drivers, now estimated at 20,000, is expected to increase fivefold by 2014, according to the American Trucking Associations. Trucking companies increasingly are turning to the expanding pool of older workers to fill openings, industry experts say.

Attracted by solid work histories, valuable life experience and, more important, good driving records, trucking companies are trying harder to lure older drivers.

More of these workers, many laid off or nudged into early retirement, are willing to jump into the driver's seat, experts say.

The industry's bid for older workers comes amid a very high turnover rate. And while the industry pins the high turnover largely on drivers jumping from company to company, others view it as the flight of workers from time-consuming, difficult jobs that do not always provide high financial rewards.

The American Trucking Associations, an Alexandria, Va.-based industry trade group, has formed a partnership with the American Association of Retired Persons to attract older drivers.

A senior vice president at the trucking group, said the arrangement is one of several the organization has formed to encourage those who have never thought about a career in truck driving to do so.

In addition to older workers, the ATA also is reaching out to women.

The senior vice president said one of the areas that the companies themselves are aggressively looking at is the older worker. They are a mature driver, and they have a lot of experience on the road. He said second-career workers, people who have worked a long time, have good, safe driving records.

Although precise numbers are not available, anecdotal evidence suggests that the state's truck driver shortage mirrors the nation's, said the executive director of the Illinois Trucking Association.

The industry, he said, is looking to older drivers to replace their peers who are retiring.

He said there are a lot of Baby Boomers retiring while there is a tremendous amount of products being moved around the globe. It is a compound problem. He said they have had great response from the Baby Boomer age bracket in filling those jobs.

The senior vice president of operations for one company agreed with that assessment.

The Green Bay-based trucking company launched a marketing campaign in 2005 to attract older drivers. By the first quarter of 2006, the company's 50-plus hires were up 85 percent, he said.

More than 30 percent of the company's workforce is made up of workers 50 and older, in excess of 3,000 drivers.

The company, he said, has been pleased with its older workers.

The idea of driving a truck for a living has become less desirable with today's younger workforce, so the company actively had to recruit older workers, he said.

Because of these efforts, trucking schools such as Best Way Truck Training in Chicago are seeing more older students than ever.