Christmas, 2017
In Maine, Snow Is Everywhere. But Not Snowplow Drivers.
The state struggles to fill jobs clearing the roads
by Jon Kamp
The Wall Street Journal
Maine is having trouble finding enough snowplow drivers, another sign of the way low unemployment is taxing states.
The state Department of Transportation has about 50 openings among about 700 positions and expects 30 snow storms in the season that stretches from mid-November to mid-April. Exacerbating the problem: some cities like Portland hire their own drivers and pay more, and private sector demand for experienced drivers is also high.
“It’s really the shortage of workers,” said Dale Doughty, the Maine transportation department’s director of maintenance and operations.
Like other states, Maine is contending with low unemployment that has made it hard to find enough workers everywhere from fire houses to technology startups. Maine’s unemployment rate of 3.5% ranked among the lowest in the country in October, and is below the national rate for the month of 4.1%, according to federal data. Jobless rates in its southern counties are even lower.
Portland, the state’s largest city, offers drivers starting wages that are about $5 more an hour than the state Department of Transportation, which pays drivers up to $18.46 an hour with a potential $1,000 winter bonus, according to officials.
The state’s transportation department is constrained in what it can do because any meaningful wage increase needs legislative approval. A measure that would have raised starting wages for plow drivers in Maine recently stalled in the legislature, a spokesman for the transportation department said.
Portland hasn’t specifically raised wages to find plow drivers, but hourly rates have risen, including a bump on July 1 this year based on terms of a negotiated union contract, said Chris Branch, Portland’s public works director.
“We’ve seen a significant decrease in the number of applications we’ve been getting,” but the city has managed to find enough drivers, Mr. Branch said. He noted that the city hasn’t hired away state transportation department drivers in recent years.
Northern New England states—which have the highest median ages in the nation—are also challenged by people retiring out of the workforce. Local employers have been scrambling, looking to everyone from immigrants to recovering addicts to fill jobs, while also chasing after former residents.
In Maine, plow driving is a demanding job that doesn’t pay very well. The season is long and drivers may work shifts stretching well beyond 12 hours. There are no days off when flakes are falling even if its Christmas. Drivers do highway work year round, but the winter months are particularly demanding.
To make up for the shortage, the DOT has been shifting drivers around the state, putting supervisors behind the wheel when needed and paying for contractors to keep the snow at bay.
It recently enlisted a contractor, First Vehicle Services, to help fill positions. The driver shortage “is a nationwide issue found across all sectors of the transportation industry,” said Jay Brock, a spokesman for the company, which is part of UK-based FirstGroup PLC.
Workers require commercial truck-driving licenses to pilot massive vehicles, including Maine’s “wheelers,” which weigh up to 65,000 pounds fully loaded and have plows with wings stretching 18.5 feet across.
“The winter is 20 weeks here and you are totally committed to work,” said Troy Leonard, a crew leader who drives a Maine transportation-department plow on a local interstate.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-maine-snow-is-everywhere-but-not-snowplow-drivers-1514203200
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