Left Join and multiple AND statements

Question

Using this solution I've attempted to use IN and GROUP BY to optimize this query to speed it up. It is still sluggish. The use of the || and also the multiple AND statements seem like there is more I can do to optimize this with a more advanced MySQL query?

SELECT 
    COUNT(HTG_ScheduleRequest.ID) AS current_job,
    HTG_TechProps.EmpNumber, 
    HTG_TechProps.EmpFirstName, 
    HTG_TechProps.EmpLastName,  
    HTG_TechProps.Veh_Number
     FROM HTG_TechProps 
        LEFT JOIN HTG_ScheduleRequest ON HTG_TechProps.EmpNumber = HTG_ScheduleRequest.SSR 
        AND HTG_ScheduleRequest.JobStatus IN (2,5,8,3,4) 
        AND RecordType = '1' 
        AND 
        (HTG_ScheduleRequest.ScheduleDateCurrent = CURDATE() || HTG_ScheduleRequest.ScheduleDateExact = CURDATE())  
        GROUP BY HTG_TechProps.EmpNumber ORDER BY HTG_TechProps.EmpNumber ASC