How do you find the true turnover rate for a company

or even 2 a week !!!

 

All of the carriers who hire/train new CDL holders will have 1 or 2 classes beginning each week. The question is how large are the classes and at how many locations? There is no way to gather any meaningful data along the lines your talking about. The turnover rate is very high, period.

At some outfits, the high turnover rate may be due to a poor pre-hire screening system/process, at others it may be due to abhorrent treatment of drivers in their first 3 months. IMO, the biggest reason for high turnover is poor training, leading to a frustrating solo experience at best, causing them to fail outright, or run screaming back home to what is familiar. I think better training and student preperations (throughout) in the beginning would make a huge difference in how they do or do not do in their initial 2 week solo period.

 

Look for trucks that do not have "Now hiring drivers" plastered all over the back of their trucks. That may be a good sign they have a lower turnover rate if they don't have to advertise in all 48 states.

 

You really are getting great answers to your question. Let me just add a bit more to it.

Some companies that offer to train a student from nothing to a CDL A holder do not actually offer jobs to all of the students. You need to be very sure you have a job offer in writing before you sign with them. Not all schools who train are of equal value. I went to Fort Scott Community College in Kansas City, KS. Because it is a Community College, I could get a Federal Loan to go to school there. I didn't because Loans drive the cost of education up and I am against them on principal. The school at the time was about $2500 for 4 weeks. They only taught me how to pass the driving part of the test. They did not teach me how to drive a truck. That you learn by actually driving.

Keystone Automotive was my first real trucking job. Great pay. On my first run, I didn't know the difference between a Truck Stop and a regular gas station. I saw the word Diesel and pulled in. Had my co driver not been there, I still would be. The third winter there I was hit by a truck in a snowstorm. I destroyed my tractor trailer and was fired. So there I am part of the turn over. I was there 3 years and was the only person who lost a job or quit in that 3 year period at that terminal. I work for ACT next. One year. Hit a pole while driving with a concussion. Fired. Many people came and went with ACT while I was there. I was the only local driver that turned over. The main reason people left ACT was that they had signed leases with the company. Leases have special problems. You have to act like a business man. Business men do not make money guaranteed. People sign leases expecting it to be a sure way to become an Owner Operator and what it really is, is a way to pay 11% interest on a loan that would be more like 6% at a bank. You can make it work but you have to be very careful. I then went to work for Transport America. There I worked for 3 days. They partnered me with someone who I can describe as this problem replaces all the words I would need with *. Since then, I was fired from Fastenal because I asked a co worker to Fix me a Sandwich. No sense of humor. Now, I am with an outfit, I like. Hopefully, they like me. So my turn over days are over for a while.

The point is, turn over rate doesn't tell you the true story. I could cuss out all the companies that have fired me but in truth, only Transport America was totally incorrect in doing so. I gave the other companies no choice. They lost the best employee they could ever have because of something I did.

Don't make the mistakes that I did and stay with your first company for at least a year. Learn how to be a trucker but consider you first year as your apprenticeship. Join OOIDA and continue your education in trucking. Learn to be a professional. Your second job is more important because you need to avoid job hopping. Every time you start with a new company you are limited on how much they pay you. You have to began at the bottom each time. It gets old.

Also, start a 401 K as soon as you can. That you can take with you. If you save 15% of your income, in 25 years, you can retire with $3,500,000 in the bank.

I on the other hand, have enough money to last me the rest of my life, provided I die by 3 PM next Wednesday.

 

You can sometimes see reliable turnover statistics in annual reports or in transcripts of conference calls -- if the company is listed on a major exchange...