Western North Dakota Oil Boom Highlights Truck Driving Shortage US Is Facing - High Paying Truck Driving Jobs In Williston North Dakota

There's a modern day "gold rush" going on in North Dakota and the eastern part of Montana. This time however it's not gold people are after, it's oil. This boom has brought to focus the nationwide truck driver shortage this nation has.


A few years back teh ATA which is the Ameircan Trucking Association had predicted a shortgage of 20,000 drivers, however a more recent projection and report has projected a shortage of 111,000 truck drivers by 2014



As for the reason for the shortage a large percentage of truck drivers are retiring and getting off the roads and this current generation is not stepping up to replace them. Many drivers are retiring and not as many people are getting into trucking these days. That has added pressure to the current oil boom and driver shortage at the Bakken Oil Fields in Williston, North Dakota

Oil fields need a ton of drivers. Each oil rig needs support and supplies of 700 loads of water, pipe, and other products and materials. Then after delivering those supplies ideally the rig will prduce oil in which case you now need more trucks to get that oil to a pipeline or somewhere else off the fields. If oil production is going to continue in North Dakoa and Monana as well as Texas and other regions this country is going to need alot more truck drivers.

The pay in the oil fields is alluring. Say a typical truck driving job pays $1,000 a week. Those same workers can go to the Bakken oil fields and make three to five times that amount.

This scenario is somewhat ironic as this country is experiencing record unemployment while at the same time there's a desperate need for truck driers.Some factors keeping people from getting into truck driving are likely the need for a clean driving record, must attend truck driving school and getting licensing, and the fact truck drivers undergo regular drug testing, and federal regulations are only getting tougher.