Repairing the technician gap

“We’re losing 10,000 techs to retirement every year. They’re not coming back,” says Dan Murray, vice president of American Transportation Research Institute.

Amanda Schuier made a simple but meaningful change to her company’s maintenance shop last year.

The former general chairman of American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council approved air conditioning for the Houston facility at the technicians’ request.

It was a basic upgrade, but in a region known for punishing heat, the difference was immediate. The air was cooler, the shop more orderly, and technicians said the atmosphere felt more professional. Small changes, she found, can signal whether a company takes its people seriously.

Schuier, who was then Jetco Delivery’s strategic maintenance director, viewed the upgrade as more than a comfort fix. It was a statement about how deeply the trucking industry is being forced to rethink what it takes to attract, train and retain diesel technicians in an increasingly tight labor market.

For many years, motor carriers have focused on attracting and retaining truck drivers. At the same time, though, a parallel struggle has emerged in maintenance bays across the country.

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Schuier 

Last year, the American Transportation Research Institute released a report examining the diesel technician shortage, with a focus on recruiting, training and retention.

Dan Murray, senior vice president at ATRI and a co-author of the report, compared the industry’s two major labor challenges.

He noted that driver recruiting and high turnover rates have long ranked among motor carriers’ top concerns.

“I don’t think that is nearly as bad a crisis as the diesel tech shortage,” Murray said.

Rather than simply churning between businesses, many technicians are leaving the industry for good.

“We’re losing 10,000 techs to retirement every year,” he said. “They’re not coming back.”

At the same time, another 15,000 technicians exit the trucking industry each year to pursue careers in other sectors of the economy.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States has roughly 286,000 diesel technicians. To keep pace with growth and replacement needs driven by retirements and career exits, the industry needs roughly 30,000 new technicians annually.

Technician retention also is a growing concern.

ATRI found that 44% of diesel technicians have considered leaving their current employer, and that data was gathered during a soft freight economy. As business conditions improve this year, the retention could worsen as technicians gain more employment options.

Tools: Barrier or opportunity?

In the ATRI report, 29% of potential entrants said the cost of tools alone was enough to discourage them from pursuing a career as a diesel technician.

Educator and diesel instructor Ian Matje, with commercial truck and equipment repairer Iron Buffalo, argued that tools should not be treated as a fixed barrier.

“If you are in a tech program, there are many different manufacturers out there that give steep discounts, upwards of 70% discount off of standard pricing,” he said.

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Matje 

Matje said students can assemble a basic starter setup, including a tool cart, for under $2,500. He urged fleets to view tools as a recruiting investment rather than an upfront disqualifier.

“As a business, you’re able to use that as a way to get technicians in your door,” he said. “If you have a rent-to-own program, you set them up with this cart of tools, they pay you back $1 to $2 per hour off their wage until that’s paid off. If they leave before it’s paid off, you keep the toolbox. If they stay, the tools become theirs, and it’s a win-win.”

From the recruiting side, Yvonne Valdes, senior director of talent acquisition with transportation service provider National Express, said tools remain a real obstacle for entry-level technicians.

“This is something that our company sees very regularly with our entry-level techs,” she said. “With those green techs, we often see we can’t move forward because they don’t have the necessary tools. But they’ll contact us back when they do, and we get a lot of those follow-ups months and sometimes years later.”

Lowering that initial hurdle, Valdes said, is critical.

“I absolutely think the minimum list is key,” she said, endorsing pared down tool requirements and company supported programs.

Beyond the ‘easy button’

While tools present a tangible hurdle, simply finding technicians remains a strategic challenge.

The ATRI report found that students and new entrants typically begin their job search online, but fleets that stop there are often disappointed.

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Phillips 

“Online posting is the easy button,” said Benjamin Phillips, director of maintenance and IT for North Carolina-based longhaul transporter Yarbrough Transfer Co. “But networking, working with your local school programs, word of mouth from your own technicians, that is a much more reliable source.”

Matje said effective recruiting often starts inside the classroom, well before a job is posted.

“[The senior technicians] come in and show the kids how to do a breakdown,” he said. “They have 120 students a day that come through this shop in a live working interview with one of your best technicians.”

That face time, Matje said, builds familiarity and trust that online listings cannot. Students want to know who a company is, what values and what kind of future it offers before they ever consider walking into a shop.

Valdes, whose team still relies heavily on online platforms, agreed that simply posting jobs and waiting for applicants is ineffective.

“We have candidates coming back and willing to accept a decrease in pay just because of the environment that they’re in or the work-life balance that we offer,” she said.

Employer reputation and local partnerships, she added, often outweigh a job board listing.

Training issues

Training data in the ATRI report exposed a persistent tension. Nearly 30% of graduates from formal diesel programs were rated deficient in 20 core skill areas. Among technicians with no formal training, that figure rose to 70%.

Phillips said fleets need to reset expectations about what training programs deliver.

“A student coming out of a diesel program isn’t going to be a master tech,” he said. “He’s going to be an entry level tech.”

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Valdes 

From the recruiting side, Valdes sees that gap surface during interviews. Candidates may present well on paper and in early conversations, she said, but struggle once technical evaluation begins.

“At that point, when that hiring manager really digs in, and the rubber meets the road, they fall flat,” she said.

Matje pushed back against the idea that formal training is the problem.

“You’re getting an entry-level technician with foundational knowledge,” he said. “It is your job to train them to become that master tech, or use your mentorship to do that.”

Pay and respect

On whether higher pay retains technicians or simply attracts them, Matje described wages as the baseline for respect.

“I have seen guys wait for 50 cents more an hour because somebody was willing to pay for it,” he said. “You can have a great culture, but if you don’t have the pay, eventually you’re going to lose them to somebody who’s willing to pay.”

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Murray 

ATRI’s data complicates the idea that pay alone can solve the technician shortage. Murray noted that trucking often loses to sectors such as construction on wages, and thin margins limit flexibility.

“Our industry average operating margin last two years is about 1%,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to pay much more, at least for the foreseeable future.”

The solution, Murray said, is recognizing that not every technician is motivated primarily by wages, particularly younger workers.

“Separate research about pay shows that particularly among Gen Zers, 60% of them have a priority or a requirement of a job that is equal to pay or greater,” he said. “Suddenly, we have to change our messaging quite a bit as an industry.”

Defining the culture

Wayne Skinner, senior vice president of maintenance for National Express, borrowed a phrase from management thinker Peter Drucker to explain why many well-intentioned strategies fail.

“Culture, it eats everything else for breakfast,” Skinner said.

Valdes said culture problems can quietly poison recruiting and retention efforts.

“We had situations that we had to fix from the inside out,” she said. “We could not staff, we were not able to retain. We had a bad reputation in the market in certain locations, and there was nothing we could do about it. Until we changed that environment, then you see a change in time with retention.”

Schuier said culture shows up in everyday management choices.

“The way I try to manage the shop is just really about approachability and conversations,” she said. “Having an open line of communication is critical to me.”