(The following story by Reed Fujii appeared on the Stockton Record website on September 1.)
STOCKTON, Calif. — Union Pacific took the unusual step this week of publicizing the railroad has dozens of entry-level job openings in Northern California, including 16 in Stockton, 25 in Oakland and 74 in Roseville, as it scrambles to meet record shipping volumes and a surge of retirements.
With pay for starting train-yard workers of up to $40,000 a year and for operating management trainees at $50,000 and above, and openings all over the United States, you might expect prospective employees are knocking down the hiring office doors.
“They are not,” Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said Thursday. “We are still looking for, across our railroad to hire in the last half of the year, 1,750 persons just to go into train service.”
In particular the Omaha, Neb.-based rail giant issued a press release Wednesday to highlight its more than 110 job openings at its West Colton rail yard new Los Angeles.
But it goes well beyond just a regional or single-company issue, said Daniel Zink, director of administration at the Red River Valley & Western Railroad, a regional carrier based in Wahpeton, N.D.
“The railroad industry, especially the larger railroads, have been in a hiring spree for one to two years now,” he said by telephone from his office Thursday. “For the first time in 80 or more years, the railroads are extremely busy. … It’s a good-news story that there’s growth happening and that rather than dealing with shrinkage in the railroad industry, we’re dealing with the opposite thing.”
For example, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad projects that by the end of 2006, it will have hired more than 14,000 new employees in just the past four years, company spokesman Steve Forsberg said from his Kansas City office.
During that campaign, it has resorted to more than press releases, including running ads in movie theaters, using radio spots in certain markets and recruiting at job and career fairs.
“It’s really an unusual phenomenon for the rail industry, because for most if its recent history, it was downsizing,” he said. But that trend has sharply reversed, particularly with a strong shift to intermodal-transport systems, in which cargo containers are moved from ocean vessels to truck beds to railcars depending on the most cost-effective and expedient routes available.
Railroads also are seeing rising numbers of retirees leaving the industry because of demographic shifts, Forsberg said.
“We’re an early precursor of the baby-boom bubble that is working its way through other parts of the American economy,” he said.
Put together record shipping volume and an aging work force, and you’ve got an industry with a huge help-wanted sign hung in the window.
“We’re really pushing, trying to draw attention from anyone looking for a job out there,” Davis said. “Anyone looking for a second career,” he added, noting that the railroad had found particular success among former career military personnel retiring after 20 years or so of service.
While the railroads provide good wages and benefits, underwriting training costs and paying workers while they train, the work is not for everyone, Davis allowed.
Because of the demands of the industry, it is outdoor work that may involve late nights, weekends and holidays; being called away from home; and being available on call, able to report to work 90 minutes after notification.
“It takes a special person to be in train service,” he said.