More than 1.5 million employees work as forklift operators in the United States. If your job requires you to move goods around a warehouse or another industrial site, it’s important to make sure you’ve completed the requisite training and received your forklift certification.
With almost 900,000 forklifts in operation in the US as of 2018, based on OSHA’s reporting of forklift related injuries, there’s about a 1 in 10 chance that each forklift will be involved in an accident in a given year. It’s important to understand OSHA’s regulations are put in place to prevent these accidents, and the costs associated with ignoring them.
The first iteration of a forklift was developed in 1923 when a company added “forks” to a truck to help pick up and move heavy objects. Forklifts have come a long way since then. Depending on the location, type of materials being used or how long it’s used for will all impact what type of forklift best suits your needs.
Forklift operator roles tend to be higher paid. Learn more about the difference in salary compared to other jobs across the country.
The process of finding and securing a job tends to be a lengthy and challenging process, even in a job market like we’re seeing today. That’s why it’s important to do everything you can ahead of time when you start to look for a job to get you ahead of the curve.
As a Forklift Operator, you may be asked to operate several different types of forklift trucks while on the job. Some are more appropriate for outdoor rough terrain, while others are meant for narrow aisles within a warehouse. Forklift trucks are grouped into similar types, called classes.
As companies begin to slowly get back to business, OSHA and the CDC (Center for Disease Control) have provided guidance to employers and their employees. With so much new information coming out every day, it's important to stay on-top of the latest recommendations.
Here at Liftoff Certifications, we get this question all the time: “I’m interested in taking the online OSHA Forklift Operator Certification course, but I don’t know what's included with an online certification. Can you help?” To help answer this question, we’ve compiled a list of everything that you should expect to get when you certify with any online provider.
If you've done some Google searching, you'll see that there are several options when it comes to receiving your Forklift Operator Certification. You can go the online route, which is typically what most prospective and experienced operators will do. Alternatively, some employers do offer in-person classes, which usually consist of multi-day sessions. I always recommend searching for a course and certification that is...
OSHA, which stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is a government agency tasked with establishing standards and regulations for the workforce and enforcing those regulations. Whether you're driving a forklift in a warehouse, or welding steel on the third floor of a new high rise, OSHA has standards that provide safety and training guidance for your position at the company.
