U.S., ATA to Train Drivers
The Labor Department will provide $1.2 million to the ATA Foundation to launch the innovative program, which is designed to help alleviate the growing shortage of drivers that is stunting the trucking industry’s growth.
The program will be a joint effort of the ATA, the Pennsylvania and Tennessee Trucking Associations and the Professional Truck Driver Institute of America.
“The driver shortage has been identified by our members as their single largest concern” in the employment area, said Susan M. Coughlin, director of the ATA Foundation. She said the details of the Labor Department grant will be finalized over the next few weeks.
The money is part of Labor Department efforts aimed at retraining workers who lose their jobs in shrinking industries to prepare them for employment in sectors where jobs are available.
“This training will help solve two problems: getting laid off workers back to work and making up the shortage of drivers,” said Vice President Al Gore, who hails from Tennessee. “Truckers haul 82 percent of the freight in this country. Another 40,000 drivers will be needed in the next two years.
This investment makes sense,” Gore said.
Although the Labor Department has a variety of projects to help displaced workers find jobs, Ms. Coughlin said for ATA to receive federal funding for driver training is a “landmark.”
Donald A. Orr, president of Roberson Transportation Services, Champaign, Ill., said the government’s acknowledgment of the driver shortage is in itself important. “Some agencies still think there is no problem,” Mr. Orr said. “Maybe it’s tacit, but it is an acknowledgment that a driver shortage is out there.”
“We have found in the past, that workers who have been displaced after years of service, as opposed to job hoppers, are very trainable and make reliable employees,” said Donald M. Bowman, chairman of the board of D.M. Bowman, Inc., Williamsport, Md. Mr. Bowman was chairman of ATA in 1995-1996.
Drivers are in such demand throughout the industry that carriers have boosted their pay and bulked up fleets with the latest equipment and creature comforts in order to attract and retain experienced drivers. For example, in February, J.B. Hunt Transport, Lowell, Ark., instituted a dramatic pay raise of 33% for its over-the-road drivers. (TT-24-97, p. 1)
While the job-training project will initially encompass 200 drivers in Tennessee and Pennsylvania, ATA officials are hopeful it will be expanded if it is successful.
Participating driver training schools will have to be certified by the Professional Truck Driver Institute of America. PTDIA President Lana Batts said PTDIA will serve two roles in the project. In addition to making sure that participating schools are certified, PTDIA representatives will work with drivers after their formal training to monitor their performance and to give support.
Joel Dandrea, director of driver training and development for ATA, said Pennsylvania and Tennessee were chosen because of the strong interest expressed by the state associations and their member trucking companies in the project.
“The trucking industry has identified the lack of trained drivers as its top concern and this exciting, forward-looking partnership is just one measure ATA is taking to help our member carriers meet their demands in the 21st century,” said Walter B. McCormick, Jr., ATA’s president. “This could ultimately serve as a national model for carrier hiring practices in the future.”
Michael S. Starnes, chairman and chief executive of MS Carriers, Memphis, Tenn., brought the driver shortage dilemma to the attention of the Department of Labor last year. “The trucking industry has significant, long-term employment opportunities for professional drivers, a first-class professional driver training capability, and grassroots knowledge of employment trends across the nation through our state trucking associations,” he said.
According to a 1997 study for the ATA Foundation by Standard & Poor’s DRI, the demand for freight is expected to grow 30% by 2006. The trucking industry will continue to haul nearly 80% of the nation’s freight, the study said.
A 1997 study by the Gallup Organization for the foundation said the trucking industry will need to hire 80,000 drivers each year to fill empty seats through at least 2005.
