Railway Workforce Development Addressing Looming Employee Squeeze

Retirement and recruitment are words that are getting a lot of mileage in the railway industry these days.
With a work force full of aging boomers on track for retirement during the next few years combined with a rising demand for freight and passenger transportation, the railways have to recruit lots of new employees to run and maintain their trains and networks.

In the immediate future, they expect to hire 3,500 new workers to replace retirees and handle an increase in business, says RAC Vice-President Bruce Burrows. Within five years, they will need 15,000 new locomotive conductors, rail car and diesel mechanics, and rail traffic controllers.

Read more in the Winter 2012 issue of Interchange magazine.