(The following article by Bob Tita wasposted on the Crain?s Chicago Business website on January 26.)
CHICAGO — For the first time in a generation, railroads are hiring. A wave of retirements, combined with surging freight traffic, is expected to create 25,000 new railroad jobs in the next five years, at least 2,000 of them in the Chicago area.
Illinois already leads the nation in rail industry employment, with 17,600 workers, mostly around Chicago. Railroads anticipate hiring 500 more people in Illinois this year.
With factory work disappearing, job openings at railroads offer a rare ray of hope for Chicago?s industrial workforce. Starting pay is relatively high, and college degrees aren?t required.
A jump in retirements last year left railroads short of freight train conductors and engineers just as the economic recovery boosted freight shipments. The need is great in the Chicago area, the country?s largest hub for intermodal freight traffic (CRAIN?S, Jan. 19).
“Our projection is for an anticipated continuous hiring pattern for the foreseeable future,” says Bill Behrendt, assistant vice-president of human resources at Union Pacific Corp.
To keep trains moving last fall, Nebraska-based Union Pacific assigned management employees to trains and handed out $25,000 bonuses to keep retiring conductors and engineers on the job until replacements could be trained. Union Pacific, the nation?s largest railroad, expects to hire 250 workers in Illinois this year; Texas-based Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co., 170, and Florida?s CSX Corp., 50.
The surge in hiring follows 20 years of shrinking payrolls at the nation?s railroads. About 223,000 people work for U.S. railroads today, less than half the 1980 total.
As a result, the median age for railroad employees is 47, up from 42 in 1990, according to the Chicago-based Railroad Retirement Board, a federal agency that administers the railroad industry?s pension program. In 2001, a legislative overhaul of the agency cut the minimum retirement age for 30-year employees to 60 from 62.
The change triggered an exodus of veteran rail workers. Retirements jumped 77% to 11,000 in 2002. Another 8,200 retired in 2003, and railroad executives expect a similar total in 2004.
Many of the employees leaving are engineers, who drive trains, and conductors, who manage cargo on freight trains and assist the engineers. Railroads typically fill engineer positions by promoting veteran conductors, leaving entry-level openings for conductors.