Employment gap? Why on every application?

They want to see how long it's been since you've been in the seat. Are your endorsements current? Is your medical card out of date? If you haven't driven for X years the regulations have changed enough to possibly require a butt load of new tests and things that they might not want to hire a person who has a shady past or a person who they will need to spend a lot of money on to retrain

Just to name a few things...

See below for an educated answer...

 

Federal regulations, they are required to obtain 10 years of employment history, including any gaps or unemployment. They are then required to verify at least the last 3 years of employment history. If you have spotty history most companies will not hire you because of the unknowns caused by the gaps.

See 49 CFR Part 391 and focus on 391.21 and 391.23. These are the required background investigations all motor carriers have to perform prior to hiring a driver, and it has been determined in court that a motor carrier has to ask about, and investigate all gaps in employment to be certain the prospective driver has not had any disqualifying events.

 

Mostly if you have a gap of say a year..
You worked for a trucking company for a year, got a random and pissed hot. Got fired for that.
Now all you have to do to avoid the next company knowing is not mention the company.
Sure, now days companies have ways of finding out, but no so much when the regulation was created.

There are a few other reasons I'm sure too, just that's the obvious one to me.

 

That's why my company asked that question. I had 6 months trying to start a business. They just needed me to write a statement describing why I was unemployed for that time.

 

And they're also trying to keep from hiring somebody who may have been involved in a serious crash... perhaps where you, alcohol or drugs and a CMV and perhaps a fatality was involved and you're trying to hide it. People have a tendency to not list problem times in their life when trying to later move on

 

Most don't care if you've been in jail. They just want you to account for that time and explain why you weren't employed.

 

Another situation, that a recruiter told me about several years ago was this:
There are men, some of them past 40+ years of age, who have spent years living in their mother's basement rent free, along with being fed and clothed without being charged for it, often being without any type of employment whatsoever.
As a result, they have no employment history to speak of.

Sadly, a lot, (not all), of these same men, have also spent years smoking pot and getting drunk.

The recruiter was explaining that the trucking industry does NOT want these type of people behind the wheel of a truck, along with trying to keep out criminals who are a threat to society.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!