Back to school in September promises to be chaotic. The National Federation of Passenger Transport (FNTV) estimates that in Auvergne (former region), _”he will miss 200-300 drivers“_ to ensure the daily journeys of Auvergne students.
Throughout the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region (AURA), this number climbs to 1,000 drivers. For Michel Seyt, bus driver in Cantal and co-president of the Fédération Nationale des Transports de Voyageurs, this lack of staff could deprive of return _“between 30 to 40,000 students_“.
Difficult recruitments
The FNTV considers that the current working conditions in the sector do not allow not easy to recruit new drivers. Michel Seyt evokes for example “part-time work that does not allow you to have another job on the side”or even “split schedules, with some trips very early and others very late, with a big break in the middle of the day”.
Elements that have accumulated after a period of health crisis which has hurt the sector and the drivers.
For the driver from Cantal, it is also necessary review the recruitment of young drivers . He explains : “even if the State has finally lowered the age for entering the profession to 18 (instead of 21), the training time is very long”.
To cope with the next school year which promises to be complicated, the National Federation of Passenger Transport is, for example, proposing to the region to spread out “the hours of return according to classes and establishments, to better distribute the work of the drivers”. And at the national level, and in the long term, the FNTV offers “reworking public procurement and contracts”.