Winter Employment Opportunities For Grader Operators

I keep an eye on the heavy equipment employment market watching for trends or indications of what sort of direction demand is going to take. Despite it being winter, a quick search of job vacancies for grader operators listed over 150 current vacancies. This is actually up by about 30 vacancies compared to a month ago. There is one trend that I think is worth noting if you are looking for a career as a grader operator.

The current trend is an increase in the number of vacancies listed that ask for grader operators that are multi-skilled. The predominant requirement is for grader operators with experience operating excavators and bulldozers and to a lessor extent, angledozers. I should point out that I was searching for grader operators and motor grader operators only. A look at other jobs within the heavy equipment field returned the following statistics:

heavy equipment operators – 200
construction equipment operators – 190
bulldozer operator – 61
excavator operator – 54
backhoe operator – 81
loader operator – 200
skid steer loader operator – 46
frontend loader operator- 63

In some cases job vacancies appear in more than one search result because of the way the vacancy notice was written. It is also interesting to note that loader and grader operators are the two most in demand at present. I use several different data sources to investigate job vacancies with these results only coming from the one site, Careers.org. If you search around you will find there are many more vacancies advertised online. What is interesting is that many employers prefer word-of-mouth, local newspapers and local employment specialists to help them find new workers rather than using an online source.

Extrapolate these figures and you may find as many as 300-400 vacancies for grader operators currently available. Employers have always had a liking for heavy equipment operators that are multi-skilled. Before starting any heavy equipment training program, make sure they provide training on a range of equipment. As you can see, you will be far more employable.