Thread: Help wanted: Trucking looks to Hispanics to drive industry

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05193/536396.stm

Help wanted: Trucking looks to Hispanics to drive industry
Tuesday, July 12, 2005

By Marc Levy, The Associated Press



READING -- Jose Frias scrubbed a chicken processing plant for six years, never earning more than $8.50 an hour. The latest of Tomas Rodriguez' three layoffs came in December when he lost his factory job making door knobs and tools. And Alfonso Lua left his native Mexico 26 years ago to pick fruit and vegetables in the U.S. for $10,000 a year.

Nowadays, Frias and Rodriguez are learning to be long-haul commercial truck drivers while Lua has been driving big rigs for seven years, making six times what he brought home from the orchards.

"This is easier, this is better," Lua said, standing beside his bright red rig one recent morning at a company terminal in York. "I don't work (outdoors) in the hot weather or the cold weather. I'm in my truck, I have air conditioning and I have heat."

Their quests for more job security and better wages led them down a road that driver-starved trucking companies are hoping more Hispanics will follow.

Beset by an aging work force and high turnover, trucking companies that traditionally culled drivers from middle America are recruiting in urban Hispanic communities, advertising in Spanish, appealing to high-school students and setting up booths at job fairs.

Truck-driving schools also are responding to demand from the industry and from Hispanics hungry for better-paying jobs that do not require fluent English.

"The truck driver has been the domain of the white male for years and years and years, and the face of the truck driver is changing," said Robert Lake, the executive publisher of Truckers News en EspaInol. "And the companies that want to be profitable and fill their trucks have to look outside of that one individual."

Hispanics are the country's fastest-growing ethnic group, accounting for an estimated one in seven of the nation's 1.3 million long-haul truckers, the same proportion as in the overall U.S. population.

But that's not good enough for some trucking executives at a time when one in six long-haul truckers are nearing retirement and driver recruitment is lagging industry growth. The ranks of long-haul truck drivers expanded by 1.6 percent last year, according to federal data, while industry expansion is projected at 2.2 percent a year over the next decade. If those trends hold, a current 20,000-driver shortfall will balloon to 110,000 by 2014, a figure that doesn't include the approximately 219,000 truckers expected to retire during that period, according to a study commissioned by the American Trucking Associations, an industry group based in Alexandria, Va.

To close the gap, companies want trucking to be attractive to Hispanics, who are joining the broader U.S. work force at an eye-popping rate and filling one of every three job openings, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"In correlation to the growth of the (Hispanic) population, we're not reaching out as fast as we should," said Larry Johnson, president of the Nebraska Trucking Association.

So Johnson's organization has sought to establish a presence in heavily Hispanic south Omaha, where it sponsors stay-in-school programs while the traditional recruiting ground of family farming communities shrinks.

Schneider National Inc. of Green Bay, Wis., one of the country's largest trucking companies, has tapped Hispanic business groups for help in placing Spanish-language advertisements and participating in job fairs.

Chattanooga, Tenn.-based US Xpress Enterprises Inc. is advertising in Spanish for drivers and seeking Spanish-speaking recruiters, payroll clerks and dispatchers to cushion the arrival of more Hispanic drivers. The ads have prompted calls from drivers and student drivers born in Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico.

"If you keep doing business like you did yesterday, you're eventually going to get run over," said Gary Kelley, a US Xpress vice president. "It's going to be difficult and expensive, but it's going to be well worth the investment."

Even those who serve the trucking industry are changing.

Truckers News en EspaInol -- a new monthly Spanish-language edition of Truckers News, a leading driver-oriented publication -- hit truck stops in January and the inaugural Truck Show Latino, billed as the first truck show targeting Hispanic drivers, is being held in Pomona, Calif., in October.

However, the Spanish-language pitches have yet to trickle down to Hispanic students at the AAA School of Trucking in Reading, where Spanish speakers can learn English along with trucking skills. Instead, they learned about the favorable wages by word of mouth or English-language newspaper ads.

Truckers make an average of $14.83 an hour, according to 2003 U.S. Department of Labor statistics, nearly triple the national minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.

God, I can't believe this. I was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tenn. and when i had my company down there. i done all the maintenance work on there building at there terminals US Xpress Enterprises Inc

Did you see the US Department of Labor Statistics "eye popping rate" where they showed 1 out of 3 new job openings were filled with Hispanic workers.

Are these illegal Hispanics or American Hispanics?

It must be illegal Hispanics...because the only "eye popping" thing happening in the US Economy is illegal immigration.

Aren't the lies amazing?

And, the trucking companies are trying to get us to believe they can't find American Truck Drivers at $14.84 an hour? Based on 2000 hours a year that's $29,680 a year. Would you be on the road 5 or 6 days a week sleeping in the back of truck with no home life for $29,680 a year? No. Few would. BUT, Truck Drivers don't work 40 hour weeks, they work 60 to 70 hour weeks, so they make almost twice that!! Now, how many Americans could you hire for $50,000 to $60,000 a year to be on the road all week? They'd be lined up from Tampa to Philly applying for those jobs with training and benefits included. SO, tell me, what's our Trucking Industry up to these days in reality?

GLOBBIES is what they are!! Low Down Lyin Globbies!!

WHO ARE THEY TRYING TO KID?

Wake Up Teamsters!!

You boys been sleepin' at your wheels, now it's time to Wake Up, Rise Up and Stand Up for Yourselves, Fellow Americans, and the United States!!

I have a relative who is an American and cannot get a job driving truck....

JP--Ask him to send resumes to every major trucking company, USX, Schneider, all of them and ask him to let you know the process, what they tell him, what they write to him, what the wages are, etc.

I'll bet them tell him, "We're not hiring now, but we'll keep your information on file." Which will totally contradict this story they are selling to the American Public.

Do you think he would help us get the goods on these people?

www.hispanicprwire.com

Latinos - Driving the Big Rigs – and Driving a New Market -

New research shows Hispanics are filling America’s truck driver shortages - and simultaneously fueling a boom for Spanish language trucking news


San Antonio, TX--(HISPANIC PR WIRE - BUSINESS WIRE)--July 7, 2005--Hispanic truck drivers want news they can use. And they want it in their own language, and their own lingo.

That information and more is contained in a new study, "Filling the Gaps in the Road", published as a White Paper and available on the S&C Advertising & Public Relations web site. To read and/or download the white paper visit: http://www.scpr.com

Based on research and interviews with Spanish speaking drivers, fleet owners and other industry experts, the paper reveals that about half of the nation's Hispanic truck drivers speak Spanish and would prefer to read in their native language. An even greater number would prefer to read information in both Spanish and English. Currently, there are about 480,000 Hispanic truck drivers.

S&C commissioned the study in an effort to determine the need for more Spanish language materials in the trucking and transportation industries.

Hispanics are the largest minority group in the nation, and also the youngest - half the population is under 26 years old. That's part of the reason why they are being recruited into the industry - that, and the fact that it's a lucrative profession with first year earnings in excess of $42,000.

By law, truck drivers must be able to speak English in order to earn a commercial driver's license. However, many Hispanics who speak English indicate they are more comfortable reading in Spanish.

S&C Advertising & Public Relations is a national full service communications firm that provides services such as English & Spanish web development. In 2005 S&C created the Spanish language Web site for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/spanish.

WOW...half of the Hispanic population is under 26? Well that's telling. Just do the math. Those are illegal aliens. Otherwise that demographic fact would not be physically or mathematically possible.

Well, I'm sure they would like to speak their native language and that's a good reason for them to go home now. Our native language is English. That's all we need with all the driving problems are truck drivers speaking and reading in spanish.

THAT really is a HOOT!!

THIS government is out of its mind to have allowed this to happen.

THEY will pay too!!

I wonder what these companies will pay if an illegal alien has an accident ... that should be cause for punitive damages

Oh i put my Family in Chattanooga on Notice, and My Mom, Little brother and Aunts and Uncle. Are calling, Bill Frist and there congressman about this. Also the local government. I am a great friend with the local Building Inspector. Mybe i should have a chat with him.