http://www.mittonmedia.com/Truck%20driver%20turnover%20reaches%20record%20high%20033106.pdf
Turnover rates for truck drivers is sky rocketing. This is especially true of the truck load, over the road and who knows when they’ll get home, carriers. Many drivers get out of the industry.
Railroads are hiring again claiming an aging work force and expanding business is creating the demand for workers. Is turnover a serious problem for railroad operating crew recent hires?
One of the largest issues in the OTR trucking field is the fact that alot of the MEGA carriers like JB Hunt, Swift, Schiender and others like them they treat drivers like machines. I have talked to drivers for the larger carriers are normally the ones who are under 2 years experiance. Also the fact that the Mega carriers refuse to enforce a mandatory Detention time policy which would prevent shipper and reciever abuse. I for one know if you could get one MEGA like Swift to give a shipper a maximum time of 2 hours to get you out the door or you get hit with 60 bucks an hour charge the crap of drivers sitting for 9-10 or more hours waiting for the product to be made would end. That way the drivers could get 20 bucks an hour detition pay and the company could get 40 bucks for their truck sitting. Just the fact of a company treating a driver like a human helps there are some great companies that have low turnover out there I know a few of them.
Shortly before I finished conductor training 3 years ago with BNSF, we had a table discussion with the training manager for our region and human resources where we could ask questions or voice comments (safe thought there with HR in the room…lol). One of the questions asked involved turnover and do they “overhire” because oldheads had all scared new hires with the thought of furloughs, etc… The answer we got is that when BNSF hires a class they expect an 80% turnover rate after the first winter season. So if 10 are hired they expect 8 to leave by the end of their fist winter season. They said if the new hire didn’t leave after the first year, there is a good chance that person will stay. Now I don’t know if that statement was their actual turnover rate or some good bull, but out of 12 in my newhire class, 7 are still with BNSF (3 of us engineers and 4 conductors). Either we bucked the trend or ??? who knows.
Shrek
In my experience, 50% of any incoming class of conductors will quit inside the first year. You usually lose 10 to 20% more in the second year. So by the third year, you’re left with 30 to 40% of the original class.
Nick
I hired out 10 years ago, in a class of 16.
6 of us left now.
Most quit in the first year…one had worked for the local power company as a lineman, said what we did was too dangerous, so he went back to the power company.
Of the 6 left, three are engineers, two are switchmen/conductors, and one is a yardmaster.
On the operations side of railroading…it is a life style…not just a job. The attrition that occurs to New Hires will normally shake out within the first 6 months to 2 years and it will be visible to all…the individual that is not comfortable doing the work as well as those who work with them.
While the rail industry may be criticized for nepotism, nepotism does have one advantage - children of railroaders have some idea of what they are getting into before they ever hire out; but having some idea is not necessarily enough as until one experiences the demands of transportation jobs you have no real idea of how it will measure up with your own defination of happiness and fulfillment.
If a person quits, are they allowed to re-apply later on?
For instance, if someone finds that the schedule is just too tough on the family life so they quit, but then later on they get divorced so now family life isn’t a problem any more, can they get re-hired?