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TRUCKERS: Luring Boomers * USA & Canada - Away from their cubicles, into the truck driver's seat
By the solid pay and the romance of the open road Toronto,ONT,CAN -The Globe and Mail, by PATRICK WHITE -September 10, 2007: -- Hauling a trailer full of wooden spindles along a tedious stretch of Iowa cow-and-corn country, Birgit Johnston can't help but admire the view from her new office... "I'm surrounded by windows and sunshine, looking at some of the most beautiful countryside in the world," says Ms. Johnston, who earned a trucker's licence in April and now drives for Challenger, one of Canada's biggest trucking firms. "What could be better?"... Less than a year ago, the 49-year-old Simcoe, Ont., resident was staring at cubicle walls and withering under fluorescent lights. As an engineering technician for Stelco, she worked in a windowless office for eight hours a day... The last of her four grown children had recently left for college. After work, she'd bring a gloomy mixture of stress and tedium home to her husband... But last year, Ms. Johnston caught a break: She got laid off... With her experience, it would have been easy enough to find technician work elsewhere, but Ms. Johnston was ready for a big career change. A big-rig career change... Across North America, baby boomers are abandoning office chairs and climbing into truck cabs. The number of drivers 50 and over at Schneider National, North America's biggest trucking firm, has increased by 46 per cent since 2005, and they now make up one-third of the company's 15,000 drivers. In a report last month, the Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council found that two-thirds of new truck drivers are 35 or older and taking up trucking as a second career... (Photo by Philip Cheung/The Globe and Mail - Life on the road's not entirely lonely: Birgit Johnston's schnauzer, Rudy, is her constant co-pilot)
Labels: boomer truckers
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