Transport companies struggle for applicants
As soon as there is a wave of flu or the vacation season approaches, the dispatchers of the transport companies start rotating.
Can they get enough drivers together so that buses, streetcars and subways can keep up the pace?? There are already bottlenecks again and again, and sometimes even trips have to be cancelled. And the problem will get worse: in the next few years, many drivers will retire all over germany. But young talent is already hard to find.
"By 2030, we will have around 85,000 positions in the driving service alone that will have to be filled or re-filled," says lars wagner from the association of german transport companies. The number is somewhat fuzzy because it is difficult to predict how far local public transportation will be expanded by then. "But the issue of demographics in the driving service alone is one that affects the entire industry."
Currently, the average age is "somewhere above 40" because the public transport companies have been cutting staff for years to save money, as wagner explains. "For the last seven or eight years or so, we have been growing disproportionately again, because the demand for opnv is also increasing extremely, especially in the big cities and conurbations."
Added to this is the generally good employment situation with few unemployed people. In munich, for example, the situation is already so serious that the staff of the local transport company MVG have had to get creative – and have an "advertising streetcar" run through the state capital. Get in, get informed, get talking – and get out with an employment contract in your pocket, that’s the motto.
"We need new drivers, 300 this year alone, and the job market in munich is so depleted that it was no longer possible to recruit a sufficient number of applicants with simple job ads," explains MVG spokesman matthias korte. "We have to draw attention to ourselves and stand out in a positive sense. Anyone can post a job ad, anyone can have an information stand, but only we have an application streetcar."
MVG has recognized the signs of the times, says sven laumer. The recruitment expert from the university of erlangen-nurnberg explained how difficult it is for companies to find candidates in many sectors and fields of activity. "The job market has turned around, has become a candidate job market. In fact, you always have to find new ways of doing things."
For example, a marketing agency had poached colleagues by offering to bring them pizza in the late evening – and pointing out on an enclosed note that its own employees did not have to scrub night shifts. In the stuttgart area, on the other hand, a small company was able to stand up to the top dogs daimler, porsche and bosch in the search for good trainees because it found out that there was a very active carrera scene in the region – and directly approached the young people there who were enthusiastic about technology by means of banner advertising.
But laumer also said: "surprise effects are one thing, you can create a certain wave in the short term. But of course you also need a medium- or long-term strategy: who is the target group, how do I find them and how do I address them??"
To illustrate how human resources departments should proceed, especially in difficult recruitment markets such as opnv, laumer chose an image: "a fisherman, realizing that there are many fish in the water, casts a net and selects the best fish."This was in line with the usual procedure with job advertisements. "When i realize that it’s going to be difficult, i have to start thinking like a fish: where in this pond was i going to be, which coder was going to lure me in?"
