Does New York State Have A Snowplow Driver Shortage?
If there is one thing that we do well in New York, it's dealing with the weather.
Whether it's a massive snowstorm that dumps more than 6 feet of snow on Buffalo or a once-in-a-lifetime hurricane that hits New York City and Long Island and floods the entire area, we New Yorkers take handling our weather seriously.
For as seriously as we take dealing with inclement weather, one thing that many people have noticed and complained about from the last snowstorm that hit Western New York is it took a while for the various government agencies to clear snow from the roads.
The New York State Department of Transportation has been advertising lately about several open positions that are available all across the Empire State. A review of the NYSDOT Employment Website shows there are several hundred available jobs all over the state, with nearly 100 of them in Western New York alone.
With all of these open positions, and the performance of plowing that happened from the last snowstorm, many people all over the area wondering if there is a shortage of plow drivers in New York.
Does New York Have A Plow Driver Shortage?
Officials from the NYSDOT have stated there isn't a shortage of drivers and they are just filling a series of open positions.
However, with so many vacancies in so many different areas of this state agency, we wonder how can there not be a shortage of drivers and mechanics.
Unemployment Still Near Record Lows
The most recent data available from the New York State Department of Labor show that the statewide unemployment rate has increased slightly to 4.4% for the month of October 2022, which is the most recent month that data is available. While the statewide rate is at 4.4%, the unemployment rate for most of the state is less than 3%.
Such a low unemployment rate may be part of the reason why there are so many open jobs at the DOT.