Enrollment up 30% at local truck driving schools
 

Local news outlets have been talkng about the surge of displaced workers looking to start new careers as truck drivers. Truck driving schools are a bit overwhelmed. They are also seeing more college graduates getting into trucking.

GM shut down their SUV plant in Dayton in 2008 and laid off over 2,000 workers. The ripple effect cost another 1,000 jobs. DHL in Wilmington closed in 2008 and 8,000 people lost their jobs.

Great, more Steering Wheel Holders and Seat Warmers on the road, people who never thought about ever driving a truck or looked down upon truck drivers before are joining the ranks. God help us.

Great.Let's see if they will find a job after spending that 10 k for a cdl.LOL

The last laugh will be on you being you will be the one paying for it. The displaced workers will qualify for retraining through a goverment grant.

The school I teach at P/T is flooded with students. ( Mostly WIA ) The bad thing is that the state has no screening process. Most of these folks could not get hired by a "bottom feeder" company when times were good, much less now. Our tax dollars at work! :mad:

Where I work full time we just laid off 10% of our local drivers. First layoff in over 34 years. That says a lot about how bad things are.

Sounds to me like you work P/T for a bottom feeder school. A good school would screen students for hire ability before taking their money government grant or not. I had to go through background checks, DOT physical, and DMV reports before the sage school I attended would accept me. The screening process should be done by those who know the trucking industry not government bureaucrats.

I agree completely. BUT, this is not our call. We have spoke with the employment office about the quality of people they send to us and the screening process that trucking companies use. Might as well have been talking to a brick wall. We were told basically that they get so much money each quarter and they WILL spend every last dime of it. If they don't then their funds will get cut next quarter. Also because we are regulated by the state we cannot turn down a student because we THINK they may not be able to land a job in the industry. We don't set company ( trucking companies ) policy so we have no say in the matter. If a slot is open we HAVE to let them in.

Yeah but when the economy picks back up all these new steering wheel holders will go back to doing whatever they were doing before.

Doubt it, 2 million Americans lost their jobs in the last three months, you think Obama can create 2 million new jobs?

Yeah right.

I just want to know where all these folks are going to work at? Wonder if they have any idea how difficult it will be to find a trucking job, as well? Good for the truck driving schools, I suppose.