Editorial: The Technician Shortage

For the millions of people working in trucking, it is well known there is a shortage not only of drivers but also technicians. The issues are covered so frequently in Transport Topics that a panel discussion on the subject can almost feel not newsworthy.

It is far less common, however, for the public to hear about this employment crisis. Turn on cable news, and you will hear how the presidential candidates plan to help create new jobs, rather than find ways to fill the positions that already exist.

So it was a nice change to see a story in The Wall Street Journal last week that not only discussed the technician shortage but zeroed in on how today’s technicians need to be able to handle a laptop as much as a wrench.

Whether sitting in the driver’s seat of a cab or looking under the hood, anyone quickly realizes the current generation of trucks is nothing like the vehicles of even the late 1990s. That message is hammered home in that publication by John Goralski, manager of fleet maintenance education for FedEx Freight, who points out that systems on today’s trucks, such as collision mitigation, are very similar to those found in military and commercial aircraft.

The timing was particularly appropriate, with the Technology & Maintenance Council holding its fall conference last week in Orlando, Florida. The centerpiece of the event, SuperTech, had a record number of competitors showing their book smarts and hands-on skills.

We congratulate not only FedEx Freight’s Eric Vos, the Grand Champion, but everyone who took part in SuperTech, as well as the students who participated in the FutureTech contest. Competing in the same arena as top professionals in any field is certainly a notable achievement, especially at such a young age.

Both SuperTech competitors and maintenance executives at the TMC meeting spoke frankly of the need to do better at directly taking their message on career and financial opportunities to students at community colleges, trade schools and high schools.

Other topics from Orlando included the government’s Phase 2 greenhouse-gas proposal for trucks. A final rule is expected by early summer — and will set targets lasting through most of the 2020s.

And who will help perfect the technologies that will be required to meet that regulation? Quite possibly, it is someone who has not yet considered a career as a truck technician but should.