WASHINGTON, D.C. — The railroad industry, which shed some 50,000 jobs over the past decade, has a challenge on its hands, according to a wire service report.
Faced with a graying work force, it needs to convince job seekers that employment opportunities exist in what has widely been viewed as a chronically shrinking industry. And it needs to get ready to train the job seekers it’s able to attract.
“There are going to be great opportunities in the railroad industry, and they are starting right now,” said Cathryn Frankenberg, assistant vice president of labor relations and human resources for CPR, the U.S. unit of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The rail industry’s work force is older than the U.S. work force as a whole, and retirements are siphoning away skilled workers at a quick pace.
In the first four months of this year, 6,000 rail workers retired from U.S. railroads – the same number that retired in all of 2001, said CPR spokeswoman Laura Baenen.
A change in the federally operated railroad retirement program a year ago is a big reason for the retirement speed-up. It’s prompting railroad workers to take early retirement – at age 60 – if they have 30 years of experience.
“One-fifth of our employees will need to be replaced in the next five years, and I don’t think the early retirement benefits have as great an impact on us as they do some other railroads,” Frankenberg said.
Rail companies such as CPR, which operates the Soo Line in the Upper Midwest and the Delaware and Hudson in the Eastern states, are gearing up their training programs to prepare replacement workers.
“It looks like there will be a rush of retirements in the next couple of years, then again in about five years, and again in about 10 years,” Baenen said. “This is what we’re getting ready for.”
CPR operates an engineer and conductor training center in Maplewood, Minn., complete with an engine simulator machine similar to the flight simulators used in training airplane pilots.
Given the non-transferable skills needed by the railroad industry, the railroads have operated their own training programs, said Tony Schwaller, a professor of environmental and technological studies who directs the Transportation Academy at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minn.
As a result, educational institutions offer little to help the railroads as they now prepare to recruit and train new workers.
“What we’re trying to do is get educators to look at the emerging opportunities in transportation, all modes, so that young people will realize there are careers to be had in intermodal transportation involving the railroads, trucks, marine shipping and air transport,” Schwaller said.
The turnover coming to the railroads appears to be unique within the transportation industry, said Schwaller.
Airlines, for instance, have a surplus pool of skilled workers to draw from after air traffic economic and safety concerns slowed air travel in the past year.
Water transportation industries and trucking also seem to be influenced by the economy and have skilled people available.
Richard Lambert, director of ports and waterways for the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Office or Railroads and Waterways, said Minnesota and other state departments of transportation have aging work forces similar to the railroads.
The reason, he said, is that departments increased staffing when America was busy building roads and bridges and was completing the federal interstate system 20 and 30 years ago.
CPR’s Frankenberg said the rails have to maintain training programs to keep employees current with new maintenance and communications technologies, and because locomotive engineers, for instance, most be recertified under federal regulations every three years.
CPR is one of eight remaining Class I railroads, as defined by government regulations, meaning it had rail revenue of more than $261.9 million in year 2000.
The other major lines are the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CSX, Grand Trunk Western, Illinois Central, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific.