High Demand For Truck Driving Jobs

Wednesday, May 31st 2006, 10:59 am

By: News On 6

Some Tulsa area employers are hoping to drive up interest for jobs in the truck-driving business. Trucking companies across the country say they can't get enough skilled drivers on the road.

News on 6 anchor Terry Hood says truck driving instructors say they've heard there are up to 600,000 truck driving jobs waiting for qualified people to fill them.

At Tulsa's American Truck Training School, executives say the flow of students stays pretty constant. Vice President Ethan Cook says students have no problems finding jobs after the 4-week course. In fact, he says most have offers from trucking companies before they even start.

Cook says the trucking industry is the primary way goods are moved around the country and he doesn't anticipate the demand for trained drivers dying off any time soon. "The country is always buying more things. We're always producing more things. So the demand for moving that material is never going to go down. It's always going to go up. It's a function of the size of the economy."

Cook says wages aren't bad either. A beginner with no experience should earn $35,000 to $40,000 on their first job, and have the potential to double that after a year.