UP to hire 150 in San Antonio area
SAN ANTONIO – Officials with Omaha, Neb.-based Union Pacific say the railroad line is gearing up for another year of aggressive hiring in its San Antonio regional service area, acccording to this report by Tamarind Phinisee published by the San Antonio Business Journal.
Shane Keller, general superintendent for Union Pacific’s San Antonio service unit, says the railroad plans to hire approximately 150 more workers for its regional operations in 2006. Just over this past year, local Union Pacific officials hired about 110 people.
“We anticipate having strong hiring,” Keller says. “We had strong hiring last year and this year, and we’ll probably have that for the next three years.”
The new hirings will boost the railroad’s regional work force of 1,400 by about 10 percent. Of that figure, 900 work in the San Antonio area.
The San Antonio regional service unit encompasses an area that includes San Antonio, Laredo, Corpus Christi, Alpine, Del Rio, Taylor, Smithville, Eagle Pass, New Braunfels and Hearne – ending right at the edge of Houston.
Eighty percent of the planned new hiring, Keller says, will be done for the San Antonio area. But opportunities for workers to transfer to other areas will be made available based on seniority.
The reason for the hiring push, says Union Pacific spokesman Joe Arbona, is that many of the railroad’s employees, across all its service units, are nearing retirement.
“Union Pacific is one of those few companies where people can say they’ve spent many years and have been able to retire from,” Arbona explains. “The continuity and just that stability of a job is pretty apparent here. As a result of that, you do have a work force that will be retiring over the next five to 10 years. A huge, huge portion of the company will be retiring.”
The new hires will include train engineers, conductors and switchmen. The engineer drives the tra