Truck Driving Schools Cast Wide Net in Driver Hunt

As the driver pinch gets tighter and tighter, the search for workers to fill the seats of America’s trucks keeps getting wider.

The demand for qualified candidates far outstrips supply and has placed a strain on the nation’s truck driver training schools. They are forced to look for new sources of potential drivers and to work more closely with carriers to keep drivers on the job once they are hired.

	Michael James - Transport Topics
	Student Eddie Oliver receives instruction at a truck driving school in Minnesota. More minorities and women are being sought as professional truckers.

As a result, tomorrow’s truckers are more likely to be women or from minority groups, and may even be getting younger.

Although no one knows exactly how many students graduate each year from driver training programs, the consensus among trucking leaders is that it is nowhere near the number needed to accommodate projected growth and the loss of drivers who quit or retire.

There are about 600 driver training schools in the United States, said Harold Haase, president of Career Publishing, a supplier of textbooks and instructional materials for vocational schools based in Orange, Calif.

Members of the Commercial Vehicle Training Association, which represents private, for-profit schools, operate 70 training sites that graduate more than 20,000 students a year. Members of the Association of Publicly Funded Truck Driving Schools run about 100 sites that graduate an estimated 15,000 students a year.

They combine to provide less than half of the 80,000 new drivers needed each year. In fact, according to Haase, enrollments are dropping because unemployment is so low that schools are having the same problem as occupations in finding qualified individuals, especially those considering careers as truck drivers.

For the full story, see the Mar. 13 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.