Load and unload ships on the docks. Getting on the list is harder than doing the work.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $40,240 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $31,270 at the lower end to about $55,140 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 8 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$300 to $700 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a license or registration before you can work.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$40,240
Bottom tenth
$31,270
Top tenth
$55,140
Be careful with these. The federal wage survey has no longshore code, so these figures come from the enormous catch-all group of hand freight and material movers: median $40,240, bottom tenth $31,270. Registered union longshore workers at big container ports are paid under their own union contracts, with overtime and night rates on top. The survey does not break them out, so no figure is guessed here.
Hours, not a salary
You take whatever shifts are left after registered workers have bid
New people start as casuals. Some weeks bring several shifts, some bring none. This stage can last years, and most people hold another job through it.
Roughly, all in
$300 to $700
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Almost nothing here is tuition. You pay for the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, the federal port identity card, at $127 for five years, plus your own boots, hard hat and high visibility vest. Everything after that, the training and the certifications, is paid for by the employers and the union once you are registered. The real cost is time: it can be years of casual work waiting for a registration slot, and there is no guarantee one ever opens.
There is no tuition anywhere in this career. What it costs you is time: possibly years of unpredictable casual work before a registration slot opens, with no guarantee one ever does.
A union pension
A pension negotiated in the union contract.
Health coverage
Negotiated for the whole coast in one contract, not employer by employer.
Guaranteed hours
Registered workers get priority at the dispatch hall before casuals see anything.
Seniority that means something
It decides which shifts, which jobs and which machines you can bid on, for your entire career.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
No school. A security credential, a waiting list and a lot of patience.
High school diploma
Grade 12
That is the education side finished. Physical fitness and reliability matter far more.
Get your Transportation Worker Identification Credential
2 to 3 months
The Transportation Security Administration issues it after a background check. You cannot enter a secure port area without one. Apply early, processing can take over 45 days.
Get on the casual list
Unpredictable
Watch for your port's hiring call. When a list opens it can be by lottery, because the number of applicants dwarfs the number of spots.
Work casual shifts
1 to 8 years
Turn up at the dispatch hall, take what is available, build hours and a reputation. Show up every time you are called.
Get registered
When the port promotes
Move to registered status, then up the classes of registration by seniority. Now you have guaranteed work, the pension and the health plan.
The security credential
Non-negotiable, and it needs a clean enough background to pass a federal check.
Physical fitness
Lashing containers is heavy, repetitive work at height in all weather.
Reliability
Casuals get called again because they answered last time. That is the entire selection process at this stage.
Another income for a while
Plan honestly for a stretch where the hours do not pay the rent.
Which union represents you depends entirely on geography. West Coast ports run under the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union), bargaining with the Pacific Maritime Association for one coastwide contract. The East and Gulf coasts run under the ILA (International Longshoremen's Association). Both hire through halls rather than through an employer. The federal side is the same everywhere: the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, and a separate OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) rulebook written just for longshoring, because a dock is nothing like an ordinary warehouse.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Crane operator
Working the ship-to-shore gantry, often more than 100 feet up. One of the hardest dock jobs to get into.
Top handler and yard equipment
The machines that stack and move containers around the terminal. A step above general labor.
Lashing and hold work
Where nearly everyone starts. Heavy, and it teaches you how a ship is actually loaded.
Walking boss or foreman
Running a gang. Comes with seniority and a reputation, not a course.
A commercial driver's license
Useful on and around the terminal, and a fallback income while you are waiting for hours.
Mechanical skill
Terminals need mechanics for the container handling equipment, and those jobs sit inside the same union.
A family or community connection to the port
Nobody advertises this, but waterfront work has always run heavily on who knows you.
Tolerance for weather
Ships get worked in rain, wind, heat and cold. The ship does not wait.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Report to the dispatch hall and find out what you are doing and where. Gear up and get out to the berth. If you are lashing, that is hours of setting and breaking the steel rods and turnbuckles that hold containers down, climbing between stacks. If you are in the hold or on the yard, it is signaling, driving and watching loads swing overhead. Shifts are typically eight hours with overtime available, and the whole operation is timed against how long the ship is allowed to sit.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
When a West Coast port opens its casual list, applications can far outnumber the places, and names are drawn at random. People wait years for a list to open at all. The first step is literally a draw.
Before standard containers arrived in the 1950s, cargo was loaded piece by piece by huge gangs of men. Containers needed a fraction of the people and far more machinery. The unions bargained over that change for decades, trading headcount for job protections and pensions.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Sea first, then the rest of the field. See every career in transport.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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