ATRI report: Majority of shops understaffed, techs undertrained

According to the American Transportation Research Institute’s “Addressing the Shortage of Qualified Diesel Technicians” 2025 report, not only is it difficult for commercial vehicle repair shops to find technicians to fill the bays, but it’s also hard to find techs who don’t need a significant investment from shops to get them up and running.

Just as bad, ATRI found that the annual average of technician turnover was 16.5% in 2024, with turnover rates almost twice as high at understaffed shops than fully staffed ones.

“These initial findings indicate that the diesel technician shortage is caused by recruitment (vacancy) and retention (turnover) issues that go well beyond tech pay or company size,” the report stated. “Both are exacerbated by the shortfall in tech training.”

Of course, when understaffing is that common, that means that shops have less bandwidth to provide on-the-job training. This makes it all the more difficult when 62% of first-time technicians don’t have any formal training, and over 1 in three have no prior shop experience at all. Despite this, ATRI found that diesel shop spent an average of 357 hours training first-time untrained techs, and 172 hours training formally trained ones. Shops also spent about $3,956 for training for their previously educated technicians, and paid $8,211 in wages for training brand-new hires.

The training gap

While some on-the-job training is always going to be necessary when hiring a new tech, whether for safety procedures or shop-specific operations, it is interesting that formally-trained first-time techs still require a significant training investment from shops.

This could be partially explained by ATRI’s finding that almost 3 in 4 untrained techs were unqualified in 20 core skill areas (as reported by shops), and that over one third of trained techs were the same. In particular, shop respondents reported that half or more trained techs where unqualified in hydraulics – basic inspection; soft skills – customer service, communication, and task management; diesel engine – engine block, cylinder head, and valve train; electronic systems – instrument cluster/driver information systems; cab – safety equipment; and brakes – dynamic brake systems, ABS, ATC, ESC.

Part of this could be gaps in effective training, as opposed to overall gaps in training, at trade schools, ATRI hypothesized. Of the 25 diesel tech training program respondents (with a current enrollment of 2,534 students), mostly made up of community colleges and trade schools, ATRI found that more hours spent on core skill areas tended to result in greater improvement overall. It’s pretty obvious that formal training tended to improve skill proficiency in every score skill by over 100% (except soft skills(89%)). But in particular, ATRI found that formal training especially helped technicians improve in diesel engine systems, brakes, and electronic systems.

Meanwhile, core skill areas that got the least amount of training hours also tended to see less improvement during training, such as brakes — dynamic brake systems, hydraulics, and cab — safety equipment. But understanding that schools are under pressure to offer training cheaper and quicker, ATRI suggested that programs could exchange or integrate instruction hours between related core skill proficiencies to help find a balance.

Additionally, the organization suggested that training programs could take lessons from skills that had higher improvement ratings than those that didn’t. For instance, cab —hardware and diesel engines — cooling system skills both had a high improvement efficiency rate per hour. Meanwhile, skills such as brakes — foundation brake system and electronics systems —battery, starting, and charging had a lot of training hours, but showcased less improvement per hour.

“These findings suggest that these training modules [for cab — hardware and diesel engines — cooling systems] are particularly well designed or easily absorbed, making them strong candidates for early-stage onboarding, cross-training, or rapid upskilling initiatives where time and resources are constrained,” ATRI explained in the report.

Barriers to entry

However, whether or not a technician can test their skills on the job is highly dependent on if they land a position in a shop in the first place. But despite TechForce Foundation finding that the industry's total new entrant diesel technician demand was 80,618 for 2024 in their most recent Supply & Demand Report, ATRI reported that an average of 18% of trained diesel tech grads were not employed in their first six months after school. And after a year, this statistic only improved to 17.5%

This is where ATRI pinpointed a few barriers to entry that contribute to the attrition of tech training program grads and could explain why technicians shift to another occupation (as ATRI found 44% were considering). These barriers are:

• Cost of tools – 29%
• Lack of experience – 28%
• Pay incommensurate to work – 16.1%
• Mentoring shortfalls – 10.8%
• Restrictive hours – 6.5%

Solutions to barriers

Cost of tools

It’s not a huge surprise that the cost of tools is one of the biggest reasons new techs might struggle to start their careers. In 2023, WrenchWay reported that 57% of technicians estimate that they spend over $60,000 on tools throughout their career. But there’s an easy solution to this, even if it does require a bit of investment: Help technicians purchase their tools.

For example, Kari Beeson, VP of recruitment and risk management at  Transervice Logistics, said that the company offers techs tool allowances that range from $500-$1,000.

And if shops want to sweeten the deal even more, Tim Rothbauer, VP of business development at Imperial Supplies, said that one of the best-performing programs at his business involves shops or fleets choosing a specific selection of tools to show their techs, and then buying the tools the tech selects from that list. Items on this list are most often impact wrenches, ratchet sets, torque wrenches, and cordless tools and batteries.

Lack of experience and mentoring shortfalls

Technicians with a lack of shop experience might struggle to be hired, and that those who are are likely to have a hard time adjusting to a new environment without some guidance from an older, wiser tech. 

Some options to lower that barrier includes job shadowing and mentor assignments for new techs. For example, Chuck Ralson, senior manager of Love’s Truck Care Academy and mechanical services, requires new techs to work with more experienced techs for three months after they graduate from training.

“We learned quickly that you couldn’t just toss them to the wolves. We had to really help them grow,” Ralson told Fleet Maintenance in 2024. “It cut turnover exponentially. People only leave when they get frustrated about something. Nobody wants to be frustrated at work. So we give them that confidence … If you give somebody a path, they seem to stick around.”

Another option to get a tech experience is to employ them part-time before they graduate. For example, Bascom Truck & Auto hires technician students to their night shift, giving them experience, a supportive environment, and a four-day workweek that lets them work around their classroom hours.

Paying properly

Of course, a new technician can’t hope to keep up with paying off their school debt or buying new tools if they’re not making enough to keep up.

Here, it’s most helpful to have a transparent pay structure that works for technicians, which could mean an hourly rate with a productivity bonus or, for some, a flat-rate system as they prefer. Either way, the key is also to make sure that technician shave enough work to stay busy and earn as much as they can.

Restrictive hours

Finally, flexible work hours can help keep techs in the shop longer. We just did a piece on the four-day work week and how some shops, such as Bascom Truck & Auto and some locations at Rush Enterprises, have found success with four-day, 10-hour-day work weeks.

But even beyond that, WrenchWay reported that 22% of technicians don’t mind working weekends, with an additional 44%  willing to work weekends for the right incentives — Perhaps the ability to leave early to pick up their kid from school or to attend to a family emergency.

Taken together, these options and ATRI’s data show that even though the state of diesel technician recruitment and retention is by no means easy, shops, fleets, and training schools have options going forward to improve the industry for all.