The job descriptions ask for someone to be on call 24 hours a day, able to fix complex highway equipment on the fly, pass a drug test and possess a commercial drivers license.
The top end of the pay scale is about $25 an hour.
The state Department of Transportation has about 100 openings for full time snowplow drivers and highway maintenance crews – a vacancy rate of about 18% that makes the already tough job of clearing the state’s roads in a snowstorm even more difficult. Three years ago, the state had about 75 openings.
“We certainly feel it this time of year in our snowplow operations,” said David Rodrigue, the director of operations for the state Department of Transformation.
A combination of a tight labor market, special job qualifications and odd working hours has led to a nationwide shortage of snowplow drivers. Montana is down half its temporary snowplow drivers this year. Kansas is missing nearly a third of all snowplow operators. Pennsylvania needs almost 60% more temporary drivers, according to national reports.
Local towns and cities are feeling the pinch, too.
The city of Concord has three of eight part-time winter positions open. That leaves the city’s general services department a little thin, but not gravely so. Drivers with commercial licenses from the Parks and Recreation Department will lend a hand in a storm and supervisors will hop in a plow truck if necessary to get the job done, said Jim Major, Concord’s highway and utilities superintendent,
“We’re pretty fortunate,” Major said. “Right now, if COVID doesn’t take out a bunch of people, we’d be able to provide the same level of service as we’ve done before.”
The city posted its seasonal plowing jobs earlier this year since the labor market is so tight. Once upon a time, the city would get 25-30 applications for a position, now it gets maybe five to 10, and not everyone has a commercial driver’s license.
“Not everyone is cut out for this,” Major said. “It takes a unique type of person. When everyone else is staying home, we want you to come to work.”
Upwards of 650 workers and vehicles are needed to clear 9,600 “lane miles” of state roads each time it snows. The state relies on its own workforce, plus a fleet of contractors to plow the highways and state routes. In order to cover for the vacancies, some workers are moved to different areas of the state to make sure all equipment is being used.
“The vacancy rate has forced us to be more proactive to make sure we have someone in every plow truck,” Rodrigue said.
Despite the shortage of workers, the roads will be cleared as they always have, Rodrigue said. The biggest difference is longer hours and less overlap for workers. Typically, the state should average 1.5 to 1.8 drivers per plow, but currently that ratio is more like 1.0 to 1.1 workers per plow.
“It’s concerning, but it’s still within a level we can manage,” Rodrigue said. “It’s not a panic.”
Another factor that adds to the difficulty is COVID-19 infections, which can make a thin workforce even thinner. Once upon a time, employees would be expected to work through a mild cold. That’s no longer the case.
“These days if you have the sniffles or a fever, we ask you to stay home,” Rodrigue said.
The number of available plow drivers has been further squeezed by competition from the private sector as trucking companies are paying top dollar for truck drivers needed to fix ongoing supply chain issues.
If all the state’s highway jobs were filled, it would mean less pressure on the workforce and less stress for Rodrigue.
“First of all, I could breathe a little better,” he said.
However, Rodrigue wants people to know they shouldn’t expect to see anything different during a storm. Crews aren’t going out later, or taking longer between passes, he said. It takes one and a half to three hours for a state plow truck to finish a route and make it back to the beginning.
“There has not been a significant impact to the public,” Rodrigue said. “If we got a foot of snow tomorrow, we’d go out and plow it like we always have.”