30 Oregon Trucking Association, Inc. Oregon Truck Dispatch Recruiting the Next Generation of Truck Drivers By Adam Williamson | OTA’s Director of Training & Development SAFETY The industry is changing, and we will either change with it or be left behind. There are new drivers out there; let’s go find them! RECRUITING NEW TRUCK drivers has been a challenge for many years now. Industry studies show year after year how driver recruitment is at or near the top of the list of concerns for trucking companies. In my experience as a trucking safety trainer/consultant, I regularly interact with management and ownership teams who express this concern in one of the most telling ways—pointing to trucks sitting in the yard due to not having enough qualified drivers. To exacerbate our problem, the current pool of qualified truck drivers is steadily growing older. Depending on which study one references, the average age of a truck driver today is around 50 years old. Considering that commercial drivers must maintain basic medical certification standards; it is obviously not an advantage to have a driver pool that skews older and older. Many drivers can only obtain a one-year medical card due to chronic health issues while others eventually become medically disqualified.
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