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Plow drivers from across the state help clear Bozeman roads

A MDT snow plow at work
Montana Department of Transportation
A MDT snow plow at work

As snow flies across the state, and plows hit the roads to clear them, Montana Department of Transportation is working to hire enough drivers. The need is especially strong in expensive, snowy communities like Bozeman.

Montana Department of Transportation has been using their variable message boards—those big black screens with orange light up words on roadsides to recruit snow plow drivers.

The boards have been in Four Corners, West Yellowstone and Ennis and the department has been successful in hiring in those communities.

“So we’ve brought those hiring message boards locally back to the Bozeman area, where it seems we have the biggest difficulty hiring full time employees,“ said Ted Jones, Montana Department of Transportation’s Bozeman Division Maintenance Chief.

Jones said the Bozeman department has 6 openings for plow drivers.

He says the department has had to get creative to keep the roads clear, including a voluntary option for snow plow drivers across the state to come to Bozeman for a week or two at a time, which has been working.

“Overwhelming support from outline areas to come help us do that. Ekalaka, Wolf Point, Plentywood, Jordan, Superior, Kalispell, just all over the state,” Jones said.

This is the second year the Bozeman district has recruited extra help from around the state. While it’s expensive to operate the department this way, with incentive pay, lodging and per diems, Jones says MDT’s Bozeman department job vacancy rate is about 10 times higher than elsewhere in the state at 35-40%.

The cost of living in Bozeman is one of the biggest challenges to hiring in the area, but Jones says an aging workforce leaving the department and challenges during covid compounded the need.

“It’s been a road to hoe for sure,” Jones said.

Jones says he has plow drivers from all around the state scheduled through May, but remains hopeful the department will be able to fill its local openings before then.

Ruth is YPR’s Bozeman Reporter working with the news team to report on the Gallatin Valley and surrounding areas. Ruth can be contacted at ruth@ypradio.org.