Truck Drivers are in short supply in South Texas. The number of CDL drivers beginning to turn over at an alarming rate and it just so happens to be timed with a pressing need from the oil & gas industry. If more than 3,000 drivers were need last year, I can't imagine what that number has grown to over 2011. The South Texas job marketing is booming in every direction as exploration and production, as well as service companies open offices throughout the Eagle Ford.
"But as the need for truckers is growing, the labor pool is contracting. As a generation of drivers retires at a faster pace than new ones enter the profession, the industry is experiencing alarming turnover rates: 75 percent in the first quarter of 2011 for drivers at large truckload fleets, up from 39 percent a year earlier, according to the American Trucking Associations.""In Texas, which has more than 16,000 registered trucking companies, the increase in oil activity has exacerbated the shortage as companies struggle to compete with the higher wages some oil-service companies pay drivers.""But even with the Eagle Ford shale luring droves of truckers (an estimated 3,070 were needed last year), there still aren't enough drivers in the region, said Glynis Holm Strause, dean of institutional advancement at Coastal Bend College, a community college that offers driver training programs in the area."
Read the full news release at MySanAntonio.com