Truck driving is a hard, dangerous job that many people find less desirable than jobs such as construction work that enable them to be home with their families every night. Two years ago, when economic conditions were better, I wrote about how the truck driver shortage led trucking companies to offer better benefits and recruit more women, retirees and immigrants.
But now, with the economy in terrible shape, the trucking industry is systematically recruiting displaced auto workers.
Maybe next trucking companies will start recruiting newly unemployed Wall Street investment bankers and bond traders who will be unable to land find new jobs in finance. If they can handle a trading desk, they should be able to handle a tractor trailer. Can’t you just see it now?
Ken Shigley served as chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Litigation Institute and on the National Advisory Board for the Association of Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America. He is actively involved in the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice. A member of the Million Dollar Advocates, he has successfully tried trucking accident cases to multimillion dollar verdict. He has lectured on trucking litigation topics at continuing legal education programs both at home in Georgia and in Nashville, New Orleans and St. Louis, and is scheduled to do so in Chicago this fall. A Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, he is also a Master of the Lamar Inn of Court at Emory Law School, a faculty member for ten years at the Emory University Law School Trial Techniques Program, and was recently elected Secretary of the 39,000 member State Bar of Georgia.