What is the employee turnover in the railroad industry…is it high?
in my area out of 150 people hired only 10 quit. i dont think its to high more are retired than quit.
Any given roster, over a year’s time on the average, loses about 7%, a figure that was given to me by a man active in union affairs.
It’s sometimes interesting to ask someone who’s been working five or six years how many are still working that this person started with. Sometimes, around these parts, the answer will be that they and maybe one other person will be the only ones left.
I recall one small company with 300 drivers. I hired on with name at the very bottom of list first day. 6 months later I was in top 70. 3 months after that I was gone.
I remember the top 15 or so on that list were in service 10 years or more.
Location is a factor in turnover also. In small town areas of states like North Dakota turnover is vitrtuly nil, except for retirement. In areas like Minneapolis/St Paul or Chicago where there are other decent paying jobs with better hours it is quite high.
Do you want to laugh? The hotel industry has a high turnover of 50%-60%. Now, that’s is high!
The trucking industry is over 100%. Some companies more some much less. That’s not funny.
In my experiance:
Within the first year, 50% of new hires will quit. Within two years, another 25% will leave. Usually, by year 4 about 25% of an incoming class will be left. If you stay five years, odds are you’ll stay for life.
Nick
Way over 100%.
I look at them this way.
Icky Orientation Hire, quits in two weeks. Victim of Cultural Shock and extreme mileage/living situations. They board the bus in a state of shock on way home mumbling things like mileage, bad food, poor company and other things.
90 day wonder. Wows dispatch with 100% on time performance and gets tired. Especially after Dispatch transitions from non critical schedules and starts demanding JIT 1000 miles away overnight in storms and bad terrain. The Honeymoon has wore off… now is time to truck.
The 6 month Regular. Walks away a truck driver but angry over everything and anything. You might see this person again with another company.
The one to two year employee. Dependable and reliable. To a point. Then the grooming starts towards Trainer position or possible first or second seat team.
Anything over 2 years. Set for life. Possibly moves into O/O or other lucrative areas or even moves into the Management or Dispatch.
And finally but not last… the one week quitter. Relies on comchecks for everything everywhere such a driver does not last much more than a week.
100 people wanna drive a truck. 50 fail medical, 20 fail background checks, 10 quit trucking school leaving 20. Perhaps 15 of that 20 will be off the road pernamently within two years. That leaves 5.
2 will die or get smashed within 5 years.
Oh, and my favorite. The first load quitter. As in… you want me to lift all of those boxes and put them WAY over there in that freezing cold dock at 5 AM?
From what I have seen, the turnover is quite high w/new hire condrs. My seniority is on what is called the NHSF roster which starts in 9/95 and ends 12/98 (all condrs beyond that are on NH99) roster. When I marked up nine yrs ago, my number was well over 3000. Today I am within 25 of cracking 2000 and it continues to drop.What this means close to 1000 condrs ahead of me that hired between 9/95 and 11/98 have left the rr for whatever reason. That is a staggering number, but good for me.
Of the 5 that hired in my group (me included) all 5 of us are still out here - been almost a year. In today’s economy, it is hard to throw a job like this away. I am not too far off from maybe holding a pool job (i’m hoping next summer) so that is something to work towards…
You should be bless working in the railroad. At least you have 40% of the work force that are trains lovers.[#welcome]
Those are interesting answers…I work in the trucking industry and can attest to the fact that turnover is HIGH in my industry…over 100% at some companies. The truckers should look at rail industry best practices to see how turnover can be reduced. Both industries ask alot from their employees and the jobs are demanding across the board…maybe a part of it is that there are so many trucking companies…drivers know they can quit and sign on somewhere else tomorrow. That’s not the same for the rails unless you’re willing to move and even then your options are more limited.
THE Choo Choo Dies on the law at x hours. It does not move another inch.
Try that one time in trucking and you will hear two words. “Yer fired.”
Please explain the two different comments of “over 100% turnover”… I can understand, 100% turnover, i.e.: all (100%) of the people that work for a company are replaced with new workers, but “OVER 100%” ? ? ? ? ? What happens, people who don’t work for the company call up and say “I quit!”???
Let’s call Trucking company xyz.
They recieve 50 orientation attendees a week. They are there three days while hiring.
That works out to 24 new hires per week average. The rest get sent back home on the bus for a variety of disqualifying reasons.
That is about 100% if not more. Half of the new hires dont make it past their first anniversary due to a variety of reasons that usually result in no longer working for xyz company. Those bodies must be replaced.
Keep in mind theres about 15% of drivers that form the insitution of the company. They are the “Jedi” and probably will remain with the outfit for years and years and years because they are actually HAPPY.
Over the years I’ve seen many OTR truckers come into the railroad industry as conductor trainees. While in the training phase where there is a slight semblance of a schedule most think it’s wonderful compared to trucking.
Once they get marked up on the extra board and start working alternately on their rest or once a week and Crew (mis)Management is constantly playing their games with them, almost all are back to trucking within a year.
IMHO Crew Management or whatever each property calls it is responsible for about 20+% of the new hire turnover due simply to the way they mistreat (for a word that’s fit to print) them.
Well, when we get our week or month off the very first thing that happens is the telephone gets disconnected. I would not take calls from dispatch because they got bodies downstairs in the drivers lounge to call on for those hot loads. Im off. I dont see the truck, I dont do paqerwork nutting.
If they really weally want me they will have to hunt me down with a fully fueled truck and toll money and ask me. If they could find me.
In today’s world of satellites that is possible sooo… I dont even see the truck.
Off is off.
I know our turn over rate is high here at LPCHI , Joliet , ILL.
We continue to always have openings for at least 10 people everyday . Every time we hire 5 if we keep 2 we did good .Currently our average employee has about 1 years experience . Alot of it is the poor work ethic of many people and drugs . People don’t want to work outside , the 1st real cold week we have we will lose at least 3 people . Sad but true.
What is the Rate of pay for the jobs in the railroad industry? Do they get bonus?