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My dh was laid off by his employer last fall when they closed the terminal that he worked out of. He did a seasonal stint at UPS as a full-time driver hauling doubles regionally and was home every night. UPS laid him off after the holidays and since then, nothing, nada, even though he has applied at multiple companies. Here is the information that I can give you, and any of you who are remotely familiar with the trucking industry can hopefully steer him in some purposeful direction:
-we live in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes region but are willing to relocate if necessary, just probably not out West.
-he is 53 years old, white, and male
-he already worked for Coca-Cola for 31 years and retired from there, then worked for a company that hauls automotive parts for the Big Three for 2 1/2 years. This is the company that laid him off just before the seasonal position at UPS. He gets no pension from Coca-Cola at this time (it will kick in when he is older and it isn't much anyway), and I am wondering if we need to mention this on applications.
-he does not want to be an over the road driver. He isn't expecting top dollar pay, but over the road is just not an option right now unless it would be maybe one night a week.
-he has had back surgery and cannot load and unload trucks manually with a hand cart, but he can do so with a forklift or electric pallet jack.
-he has a spotless driving record, no accidents, no points on his license, and no DUIs. He has never had any of these, even in over 30 years of driving truck, which I think should make employers sit up and take notice, and yet...
-he has his HAZMAT, Tanker, Air Brakes, and Doubles-Triples endorsements, which is everything that is available.
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Based on the above, could someone, ANYONE, who knows about the trucking industry suggest a region, state, etc. where he might be able to find work, and could you also troubleshoot the information I have given and maybe give us some idea why he isn't getting many calls, and the ones that are calling are for OTR jobs and they just want a warm body with a license? He is getting very, very frustrated. He ran into an old friend today who told him that when he was looking for work, he was told that he was "too white and too male". Okay, I get that companies want to hire women and minorities, could this be his problem, or possibly age discrimination?
Thank you, I appreciate your advice. Eastern Texas may be a possibility, but as far as anything farther west, I think it would be hard for us to do that because we both have elderly parents and are trying to stay, if not in this region, than at least in the eastern U.S. I will check out positions in eastern Texas though, so thanks for the help.
You may want to check out the Memphis, TN area. It is a major transportation hub, and it borders 2 other states which may work in his favor for local deliveries. He may be able to find something in terms of driving for FedEx, Auto Zone, International Paper, (all have headquarters here) etc. The cost of living is extremely reasonable and there is no state income tax.
Would he also be interested in maybe teaching at a driving school? Because Memphis is such an intermodal site, he may be able to find something where he can teach at one of the many driving schools here.
Look on indeed.com for additional job possibilities. Best wishes!
I just looked on indeed's website, and there were pages of jobs when I searched under the term, "truck driving" in the Memphis area. There were many intermodal jobs which look like they would not involve loading and unloading trucks. You just drop the trailer off, and there you go. =)
Wow, thanks for doing all that leg work, ckdub! I will check it out right now. Memphis is not a city that I had thought of, but at this point, it's well worth a try.
You are very welcome! My Dad has been in the trucking industry for quite a while. The job prospects are good here. I hope you find something wonderful soon!
Thanks, Velvet, he actually has had his Class A CDL for several years, I should have mentioned that.
He just called a company in our area that he submitted an application to last week to check the status of his application, and the guy told him that they are very interested in hiring him but that they are still waiting for his full background check to come back. That helped his outlook, because we hadn't even thought about the fact that the companies would do the background check before calling for an interview, but it makes perfect sense. Why interview someone and then find out they have a criminal background, right? And I know these things can sometimes take several days to process. He has a spotless background, thank God, so hopefully calls will start coming in soon. If not, then we will check into jobs in eastern Ohio or western PA, which isn't far from where we live now, as well as the Memphis area as ckdub suggested.
Not sure what OTR means but there are ads for CDL guys all over the place in LaSalle County Illinois.
Looking at Indeed, it seems the main stuff around here is truck driving, nursing, customer service, sales, manual labor (like janitorial, etc), some manufacturing, and restaurants, of course.
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