Can a 16 or 17 Year Old Drive a Forklift at Work?

A 16 or 17 year old may not drive a forklift in a non-farm job under federal law. The rule is Hazardous Occupations Order 7, it has no apprentice or student-learner exemption, and it covers far more than forklifts.

If your teenager is starting on a construction site, in a warehouse or at a lumber yard, this is the order to read first. What follows is the federal floor. Your state may set a stricter rule, and where it does, the stricter rule is the one that applies.

What does Order 7 actually say?

29 CFR 570.58 declares the following particularly hazardous for minors between 16 and 18. Here is paragraph (a)(1) in full:

Work of operating, tending, riding upon, working from, repairing, servicing, or disassembling an elevator, crane, derrick, hoist, or high-lift truck, except operating or riding inside an unattended automatic operation passenger elevator. Tending such equipment includes assisting in the hoisting tasks being performed by the equipment.

The forklift sits inside “high-lift truck.” This is the regulation’s definition, in full:

High-lift truck shall mean a power-driven industrial type of truck used for lateral transportation that is equipped with a power-operated lifting device usually in the form of a fork or platform capable of tiering loaded pallets or skids one above the other. Instead of a fork or a platform, the lifting device may consist of a ram, scoop, shovel, crane, revolving fork, or other attachments for handling specific loads. The term shall mean and include highlift trucks known under such names as fork lifts, fork trucks, fork lift trucks, tiering trucks, backhoes, front-end loaders, skid loaders, skid-steer loaders, Bobcat loaders, or stacking trucks, but shall not mean low-lift trucks or low-lift platform trucks that are designed for the transportation of but not the tiering of materials.

Read the list of names again. A skid steer, a Bobcat, a backhoe and a front-end loader are legally the same thing as a forklift for this purpose.

It is not only forklifts

Paragraph (a)(2) applies the same seven verbs to manlifts and freight elevators, with one exception: 16 and 17 year olds “may ride upon a freight elevator operated by an assigned operator.” The definition of manlift then reaches the machines a trades crew actually uses:

The term shall also include truck- or equipment-mounted aerial platforms commonly referred to as scissor lifts, boom-type mobile elevating work platforms, work assist vehicles, cherry pickers, basket hoists, and bucket trucks.

Cranes, derricks and hoists are covered too. The Department of Labor’s own summary in Fact Sheet #43 lists forklifts, non-automatic elevators, skid-steers, backhoes, manlifts, scissor lifts, cherry pickers, work-assist platforms, boom trucks and cranes.

The skid steer deserves a second look, because it gets used for plenty of jobs that involve no lifting at all. In its 2010 final rule, the Department described a case, Lynnville Transport, Inc. v. Chao, in which minors used a skid-steer loader to clean livestock trailers. The court found the operation violated Order 7 even though the youths “did not operate or utilize the loader’s hoisting device but used the skid-steer loader as a scraper.” Using the machine as a scraper or a pusher does not take it outside the order.

Riding, spotting and fixing count too

Operating is only one of the seven prohibited activities. The others are tending, riding upon, working from, repairing, servicing and disassembling. In practice that bars a 16 or 17 year old from:

• riding on a forklift as a passenger, or on its forks
• working from a platform or cage raised by a forklift, or from a scissor lift or bucket truck
• acting as a spotter or helper for the operator, because “tending” includes “assisting in the hoisting tasks being performed by the equipment”
• servicing or repairing the machine, even with the engine off

These words were added in 2010, and the final rule explains why. The Department wrote that since 1999 it had investigated at least three incidents where youth under 18 were seriously injured while riding on forklifts operated by other employees. It also cited the August 2008 death of a 17 year old in Georgia who was crushed when a one-ton electrical inverter box fell from a forklift. He was not driving. He was serving as a spotter.

Is there an apprentice or training exemption?

No. The apprentice and student-learner exemptions in 29 CFR 570.50 apply only where a section contains one, and Fact Sheet #43 lists the orders that do: 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 17. Order 7 is not among them. A registered apprenticeship, a signed student-learner agreement and a school forklift course all leave the answer unchanged.

This produces a split worth knowing. A registered apprentice of 16 or 17 may, under strict written conditions, do some roofing work or some work in a trench. The scissor lift that gets the crew to the roof and the backhoe that digs the trench are still off-limits until 18. The pages on roof work and demolition and excavation set out those orders.

Forklift training under OSHA is a different law doing a different job. 29 CFR 1910.178(l) requires the employer to “ensure that each powered industrial truck operator is competent to operate a powered industrial truck safely, as demonstrated by the successful completion of the training and evaluation specified.” It sets no age. OSHA’s own bulletin on forklift training for temporary workers states it plainly: “it is a violation of Federal law for anyone under 18 years of age to operate a forklift.” A training card in a 17 year old’s wallet satisfies neither rule.

What about pallet jacks?

The definition of high-lift truck excludes “low-lift trucks or low-lift platform trucks that are designed for the transportation of but not the tiering of materials.” The dividing line the regulation draws is tiering: whether the machine is built to raise a load and stack it above another. A powered unit that lifts pallets to stack them is a high-lift truck. A low-lift truck designed only to move loads, not to tier them, falls outside the definition for 16 and 17 year olds.

Do not assume the label on the machine settles it. OSHA’s bulletin lists pallet jacks among powered industrial trucks for training purposes, which is a different definition from the one in Order 7. If you cannot tell which kind your teenager would be handed, ask the Wage and Hour Division to say which side of the line it falls on.

The few things Order 7 leaves out

The regulation itself carves out operating or riding inside an unattended automatic passenger elevator, and riding a freight elevator run by an assigned operator. Fact Sheet #43 adds that Order 7 “does not apply to chair-lifts at ski resorts or electric and pneumatic lifts used to raise cars in garages and gasoline service stations.”

That last point matters for a teenager headed into automotive work. Order 7 does not stop a 16 or 17 year old using a vehicle lift in a garage. In its 2010 rule the Department said it needed more information before deciding whether 16 and 17 year olds who operate hydraulic grease racks are at risk, and it did not add them to the order. Your state may be stricter.

And for a 14 or 15 year old?

The rules are wider. Under 29 CFR 570.33(c), 14 and 15 year olds may not work in “occupations that involve operating, tending, setting up, adjusting, cleaning, oiling, or repairing hoisting apparatus.” That paragraph does not say power-driven, and it has none of the car-lift or chair-lift carve-outs in Fact Sheet #43. Paragraph (e) separately bars them from operating or tending “any power-driven machinery,” with limited exceptions for office equipment, vacuum cleaners and floor waxers. An electric pallet jack is power-driven machinery.

Farm work is different

Order 7 applies to non-agricultural employment. Farms have their own list at 29 CFR 570.71, and it applies to children below 16, not below 18. That list includes operating or assisting to operate a “fork lift” and “trencher or earthmoving equipment.”

The Department’s Fact Sheet #40 states: “Youths ages 16 and above may work in any farm job at any time.” It also says the farm hazardous occupations rules do not apply “to youths employed on farms owned or operated by their parents.” Under 29 CFR 570.72, a vocational agriculture student-learner under 16 may be exempt from the farm forklift ban under a written agreement signed by the employer and the school, with direct and close supervision among other conditions.

So under federal law a 16 year old may drive a forklift on a farm job and may not drive the same machine at a building supply yard. Whether a particular job counts as farm work is a legal question. If you are not sure, ask the Wage and Hour Division before assuming the farm rules apply. Many states also set their own farm standards, and Fact Sheet #40 says the most stringent standard must be observed.

Check your state

The Department of Labor’s rule on the two layers is short: “Where a state child labor law is less restrictive than the federal law, the federal law applies. Where a state child labor law is more restrictive than the federal law, the state law applies.” 29 CFR 570.50(a) says the same thing from the other side: nothing in the federal orders authorises non-compliance with a state law establishing a higher standard.

Your state labor office is listed on the Department of Labor’s state labor offices page. Child labor complaints to the federal Wage and Hour Division are free and confidential, according to YouthRules. This page is general information, not legal advice.

What to ask before the first shift

If your teenager is starting on a site or in a warehouse where any of this equipment runs, these are the questions worth putting to the employer directly:

• Who operates the forklift, skid steer and lifts, and is anyone under 18 ever asked to?
• Will my teen be asked to spot, guide loads, ride along or work from a raised platform?
• Is the work my teen will do on a farm, or not? Which rules is the employer applying?

For the wider picture, child labor laws explained for parents covers ages and hours, and the can my teen do this job tool checks a task against every federal order. Once your teenager turns 18, Fact Sheet #43 says the federal youth employment provisions stop applying, and at that point the forklift question becomes an OSHA training question like it is for any other worker.