School bus drivers given golden hellos and free hotel stays

GOLDEN hellos, free hotel accommodation and extra overtime are the banker-style packages being offered to bus drivers at First Group, writesRupertSteiner.

The transport giant used its full-year results to warn trading would be affected by a shortage of bus drivers.

First Group said it had been forced to offer a raft of incentives to attract and retain drivers at its yellow school bus operation in the United States. The firm has 59,000 employees at 500 depots in the US and Can- ada. But it said that high levels of employment in Texas, Southern California, Ohio, Kansas and Massachusetts mean low demand for its part-time and seasonal work.

Chief executive Tim O’Toole has been forced to ship in workers hundreds of miles from other states and has had to put them up in hotels and also pay signing-on bonuses and extra overtime.

The job is low paid and drivers are only needed at the beginning and end of the day, and only during term time. O’Toole said revenues had also been affected by the late start to the school year.

‘We have to assume the driver situation will persist,’ he said.

‘This is tied to the fact that the lower band of employment levels are at full employment,’ he added.

‘Even if we bring in drivers on higher wages, the penalty on the business will continue and will have to be paid for. We have been making cost savings to cover this.’ The transport group merged two regions together, axed 130 management roles, and combined the engineering department of its school and main transit arms.

Pre-tax profit for the year to March 31 increased to £113.5m up from £105.8m but sales fell 13.8pc to £5.2bn.

The company’s shares on the London stock exchange rose 6pc, or 6.2p to 109.3p after chairman Wolfhart Hauser said the dividend may be reinstated for the first time in three years.