Shortage drives trucking firms to hire Boomers

The Chicago Tribune reports:

After 25 years riding a desk as an electrical supervisor, Raymond Gilmore found his ticket to retirement adventure in the cab of a tractor trailer.

"My brother is a truck driver, and he said that I could travel and make good money and stay in shape," said Gilmore, 59, of Beach Park as he waited recently to take the test for a commercial driver's license. "I've been from Montana to Maine. But I want to go south and farther west, and this is a good way to do it."

Gilmore is just the kind of eager recruit the trucking industry needs to help deal with a labor crisis. The shortage of drivers, now estimated at 20,000, is expected to increase fivefold by 2014, according to the American Trucking Associations. Trucking companies increasingly are turning to the expanding pool of older workers to fill openings, industry experts say.

Attracted by solid work histories, valuable life experience and, more important, good driving records, trucking companies are trying harder to lure older drivers.

More of these workers--many laid off or nudged into early retirement--are willing to jump into the driver's seat, experts say.

"They've been downsized, outsourced," said Sandra Grantham, owner of ATS Professional Truck Driving School in Wauconda, where Gilmore trained. "They have huge mortgages and lifestyles they can't afford anymore. ... And it is one of the few industries that doesn't age out."

The industry's bid for older workers comes amid a very high turnover rate. And while the industry pins the high turnover largely on drivers jumping from company to company, others view it as the flight of workers from time-consuming, difficult jobs that do not always provide high financial rewards.

We expect other industries to have the same problem in the next couple of years.