Hire outside the box
In the past, most trucking jobs kept drivers on the road and away from family for long stretches at a time. The covered long distances for weeks or months and were traditionally populated by men. The trucks of the past were also harder to operate, less comfortable and challenging to learn. Over the past few years, things have changed. With new tech, automation, and driver training support the best truck driving jobs are now more accommodative for everyone. As a matter of fact, there is an acute shortage of truck drivers in the United States and the industry is looking everywhere possible to fill the roles. New initiatives aimed at training female drivers are popping up everywhere.
Need for New Truck Drivers
The American Trucking Association did a truck driver shortage analysis in 2015 and they concluded that in the U.S., there will be a shortage of 175,000 drivers by 2024. This is brought about due to things such as the average age of truck drivers in the U.S. being 55 years, meaning that they will soon be entering their retirement and leaving behind a huge gap in the workspace. This means that there won’t be enough qualified truck drivers to fill in that gap. This has created a void that needs to be filled by individuals who are after long-term driving careers. These are drivers that are willing to complete trucking school, truck driver orientation, and on the road training.
Lack of Women in Trucking
Educating women on trucking and encouraging them to take up truck driving is one of the ways of dealing with the driver shortage in the U.S. Social and cultural reasons prevented women from taking up careers like trucking in the past. This is because they had to take care of children, something that they couldn’t do while spending most of their time on the road. This is the reason why it was predominantly occupied by men.
Today, things have changed a lot when it comes to culture. Women are no longer tied to the home and this can be seen in the many female entrepreneurs and professionals out there. This also means that if women have older children, they can take on trucking jobs, although those that don’t require them to be away for too long. Trucking jobs like regional dry van routes and port and rail driving jobs are some of the types of jobs that can have drivers back every couple of days. This will work out for those with families and other commitments.
Summary
The trucking industry is open for women to join. They are encouraged to join their male counterparts, earning equally and also enjoying the same benefits. There are more reasons to join the industry than not to. Keep an eye on job boards and websites for trucking jobs in your city.