In the midst of a truck driver scarcity final yr, Walmart determined its personal ranks of 1.6 million staff would possibly need to learn to drive an enormous rig for Walmart.
Walmart dangled first-year truck driver salaries of as much as $110,000 and a 12-week coaching program for its Walmart and Sam’s Club retailer and warehouse employees. The top notch with former retail staff graduated Friday from a coaching middle in Walmart’s Sanger distribution middle in Denton County, Texas.
One of them is Ashley Milacek, 35, who says her new job driving 18-wheelers will nearly double her Walmart Supercenter wage.
“I was sitting at my computer when I saw the offer and I just had to jump on it,” Milacek. “I’m the first in my family to go down the trucker path. I never thought about being in this seat, but I wanted to put myself up to the challenge.”
Milacek has labored within the Gainesville, Texas, Walmart since 2014, first in an in a single day job and later in on-line grocery and pickup. She was a common merchandise supervisor when she determined to use to be a “Walmart Private Fleet Driver.”
More than 70 Walmart staff are graduating this week from seven coaching facilities arrange throughout the U.S.
Milacek is considered one of 9 Walmart staff who accomplished this system Friday in Sanger, the retailer’s solely truck driver coaching middle in Texas.
So far this system has produced 190 new drivers for Walmart which employs 13,500 truck drivers. Graduates earn their business driver’s licenses. Walmart places its college students up in a resort and transports them backwards and forwards to the coaching middle whereas they proceed to be paid.
Women made up 8.1% of the trucking trade’s 3.54 million skilled drivers final yr, based on the American Trucking Associations. That’s an all-time excessive and the seventh straight annual improve.
The trade group says there’s nonetheless a truck driver scarcity of almost 78,000 drivers although the worst of the pandemic and provide chain points are historical past. Some say the trade has a excessive turnover charge that contributes to shortages. The driver shortages are worse within the longer-haul, for-hire truckload market and made worse by drivers who can’t cross a drug check, based on the affiliation, which estimated that the scarcity may surpass 160,000 in 2031.
Walmart has regional supply territories that enable it to vow drivers that they’ll have consecutive days off and be house each week.
Fritz Keel, director of fleet growth at Walmart who led this system’s curriculum design, stated as a substitute of cap and robes these graduates will put on the official Walmart driver uniforms: a blue and white Walmart trucker hat and white shirts with the Walmart non-public fleet patch, and patches for his or her names, transportation area and the American flag.
Milacek’s mom particularly was fearful about issues of safety, however the extra she realized, Milacek stated she shared the data together with her household in Anadarko, Oklahoma, and “they’re super excited now.”
She’s additionally been listening to from curious former co-workers. “I tell them it’s a great opportunity and a phenomenal program,” she stated.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”