The great big bus driver shortage. Why in the name of god would you drive a bus these days anyway...

You could say very few people in general choose to become bus drivers as it dosen't appear to be the most sought after career path. Back in the 90s and early 2000s DB still did seem to be considered a good job to have but now not so much and I don't think anything has changed that majorly to make it much worse.

On the subject of women I do notice a lot more women driving for DB and GAI now compared to even 10 or 15 years ago so obviously some of the recruitment campaigns targeting women have worked. But I do notice very few women driving for any of the private operators like Aircoach, Citylink, Dublin Coach etc. or driving private hire coaches and I'm on the road a lot and would notice these things Bus Eireann seem to have a few but not to the extent of DB or GAI. I find that interesting do women feel less inclined to do long distance work than city work.

I'd say it's not really on the radar for a lot of women and I guess it can be a bit odd being the only woman sitting in a canteen full of men and vice versa for say nurses. That and of course the toilet situation.

I would say the thing putting off the younger generation and that's not me bashing the younger generation I'm in my mid twenties myself is that a lot of the younger generation seem a little bit work shy. The hours of bus driving is not conducive to meeting up with your friends or having much of a social life. Which is slightly ironic as there's more of a demand for people to provide transport to facilitate said social life.

I'm not sure how you think it is misguided at all. Driving a bus is way down the scale of job preference for women. The reasons for this are irrelevant to the point I made, which was about bang for your buck. Targeting women in the recruitment campaign was guaranteed to yield poorer results in the final numbers recruited had they advertised the job to everyone.

Why is it necessary to address the imbalance of male to female bus drivers? I don't see any attempt to address the imbalance in any female dominated sectors. I say advertise the job/career/post, let people apply and hire the most suitable candidates. Targeting women who are less interested in driving a bus than men is just not logical if the aim is to address a shortage. Would be different if there was not such a shortage, then it would make more sense diversifying the workforce if that was the aim.

I agree with you that many young people are very work shy. Many have never had a job in their teens and expect the world to be served up to them. Driving a bus might seem like hard work to them compared to sitting in front of a computer screen half the day. I also agree that DB pays a far better starting salary than the majority of jobs, including those requiring years of education and training.

You seem to be a bit slow to understand the basic idea that every euro spent trying to encourage a minority audience, or even a larger audience of less interested people is a less effective euro. Splitting the recruitment spend like that only dilutes the impact and results in lower numbers.

Does it matter more that DB has a full compliment of qualified drivers, or would you prefer staff shortages as long as there is gender and ethnic diversity behind the wheel? Tell, me please why it's so important to have drivers of any specific gender or ethnicity?

Personally I couldn't give a damn what gender, colour, ethnicity or religion the person driving the bus, train, plane, or donkey.....as long as they know what they are doing and can get the mode of transport safely from A to B. That's not prejudice chappy. I just don't virtue signal to please the audience.

Diverse businesses perform better

I wouldn’t consider that article to be a good indicator on diversity and performance for bus driver jobs. I’m not interested enough to research it more deeply. The problem DB has (as do most companies/industries) is a lack of numbers. IMO they greater urgency should be on numbers rather than diversification. They don’t have the luxury to be wasting money on low yield recruitment campaigns.

Non EU, so from where? N America, Aus & NZ all have the same issue. Maybe the UK, lol.

Just in the news here yesterday that another 140 departures daily in Wellington have been cancelled permanently due to the shortages, in addition to 60 in October.

Everywhere has shortages...

https://www.iru.org/system/files/IRU%20Global%20Driver%20Shortage%20Report%202022%20-%20Summary.pdf

Makes a bit of a mockery bringing in people from abroad when there's people with D licences like myself who get rejected Dublin born and bred. Say it would be a something GAI would do as opposed to DB/BE.

The 2k bond dosen't seem to be much of a detterent to stop people leaving. I did see an ad on FB a while ago an agency looking for D licence holders to be based in Ballymount, Dublin 12 don't what other other bus company is based there so wonder if they've gotten any drivers from agencies.

If they improved their rosters they'd get more drivers to stay either shorten the duties and have drivers 5 over 7 or make them longer but offer more time off. 11/12 hour shifts of 4 on 4 off would suit some especially would help cut back on travel expenses for those commuting long distances.

Nonsense if ever I heard it

There definitely is an element of culture too. Some people culturally are more independent than the others - some like to be monitored and micromanaged. A problem with loyalty is getting greater with a new generation. I'm facing so many issues with them not turning up for a job interview, being late, inefficient etc. Some nationalities in general are better at something than the others (could be a cultural or educational thing)... this is particularly noticeable during these staff shortage times when we waste a company's budget for salaries, but get just an average output. We need people who work with high standards... I've noticed people from economically more advanced places require more from their workplace. This could be the reason they're looking for non-Eu drivers - they'd complain less and work more. This is an important element creating a strong economy. Employee should always create a better value than they receive, and they shouldn't think them working for the company only. We get paid from the businesses, but actually create value to the society. So many people think they do a favour by turning up for work and doing their job because they have an understanding that they create a higher value than get a salary in return. That's a bad attitude as employees also get training and experience. Again some would say that experience is for a work place to use through the employees... Imagine if we had robots working for us... People always have to be realistic with their skills and reevaluate how current knowledge and skills are relevant for today and how relevant they're going to be tomorrow.

From an ASB aspect it would've been worse in the 1990s before autofare was introduced. Many drivers were attacked and threatened with things like knives and syringes in those days due to the presence of cash on the bus since autofare was introduced attacks decreased dramatically.