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.

Who cares? Shutup and drive.

I care for every American that has lost their job and/or source of income. Trust me I have been there, and I probably don't have to tell you but it sucks. Just hate to see these folks be misled into believing that there is a plethora of trucks out there just waiting to be filled.

Last time i checked, even though you attend a driving school, you are not guarenteed a job driving for anybody. I went thru the Swift school, and they told me from day 1...that i should look at this school as a 3 week interview.

Schools are open to serve one purpose......MAKE MONEY. Period.

well hopefully raising the pprices will discourage people from doing it. i know when i paid 3800 for my class in jersey back in 2003 i was really pissed people were in my class for free thru unemployment. **** wasnt fair

That doesnt just go for trucking schools. Where is anybody going to a technical school going to get a job? Everyday there are welders, machinists, bricklayers and electricians going to school to learn their trade. I bet technical schools arent turning away applicants because jobs in those fields are drying up.

You make a valid point, but it is slightly different when the trucking companies are paying for their training or even more so when they are going to a carrier ran school. Let me know if you know of any companies that will pay my way through welding school. Wouldn't mind be an electrician either, you know of any electrical companies that have their own training program where I can learn the trade and pay them back over the course of several years?

.....

When you wondered where all these people were going to work I assumed we were talking about people who pay for their own training at one of these cdl mills. I would think that if they go to a carrier run school they would work for that carrier.

Yeah, it tends to pizz ya off, doesn't it. Of the 8 people in my class a few years ago, myself and 1 guy I befriended throughout the process were the only 2 who were paying their own way. There were 2 guys who probably shouldn't have been trusted to drive a damn skateboard, let a alone a semi, yet through the magic of WIA (and yours and myselfs tax dollars) there they were attempting to learn to drive a rig. My instructor ended up busting both of them out of class A courses and into class B during the course, as neither were coordinated enough to master double clutching after like 3 freaking weeks, so they put them into an old automatic moving van for the remainder of the course. 8>)

ya..........when I went to school in '07 all the "students" were from

unemployment......(they paid nothing)

some were there for 3 mo. and could not alley dock or str8 line back...or

shift...!!!!!:whistle::whistle::whistle::whistle:

I had 2 weeks to learn............and kicked a**. heck..................... i was

teaching them.......:smokin::smokin::smokin:

I guess when it's on "your dime". you work ..............you learn........ahhh


just venting...:pissedoff::pissedoff:...have a nice day all.....................:thumbsup::thumbsup::clap: