#Cta bus driver salary drivers
Three hundred bus drivers who were previously under temporary status have been transitioned to full time - and that still wasn’t enough to address the shortage. Lou Foglia for WBEZīut eventually that well had been tapped too.
He said he’d previously worked at Amazon and was looking for a career change. Mahtan Warfield attended the CTA job fair in January 2023. As bus drivers fell sick, the agency pulled from its reserves - a small pool of recently retired bus drivers the agency reaches out to when drivers call off. The CTA, the second largest transit agency in the country, was one of the only transit systems that didn’t reduce service during the peak of the pandemic - even as many people transitioned to working from home. Nearly all of the issues, from delayed buses to dirty trains, that frustrated riders, the agency said, can be boiled down to this one issue. The lack of bus operators and mechanics have made it nearly impossible to keep the buses on time, the agency recently told WBEZ in response to a mostly anecdotal survey of nearly 2,000 public transit riders. The CTA has said its workforce shortages have put a drain on its ability to provide routine service. Positions that used to be super competitive now remain open and unfilled for months.
Lou Foglia for WBEZīut for the country’s second largest transit agency, the days of simply posting a “Now Hiring” notice on its website are long gone. Job seekers line up to register for a job fair at CTA headquarters in January. Woodruff said that, starting in 2022, the agency only hired on a full-time basis. It is not clear how many of those positions were full-time versus part-time hires. While the CTA did acknowledge a pause in hiring from the start of the pandemic in April 2020 through mid-summer, agency spokesperson Kathleen Woodruff said it resumed hiring in late July of that year.Īccording to hiring figures of bus operators provided to WBEZ in an email, CTA hired 193 in 2020, 308 in 2021 and 435 in 2022. “I’ve never seen this many people come for an opportunity than I saw today,” said Hill, adding that this is what the CTA should be doing from now on if it wants to remain competitive in this job market.
He said he was surprised by the crowd that turned up to the most recent fair the last weekend of January. The union president had just wrapped up a talk in the main conference room and was standing in a hallway. Attrition continued through COVID, so they are digging themselves out of a hole now.” “Staffing levels are low because didn’t hire during COVID-19,” said Hill. Keith Hill, president of the local union that represents bus drivers, attended the buzzing fair, his fifth lately. Lou Foglia for WBEZīut is it enough to compete with Amazon and other delivery services that are also scooping up drivers? A walk through the fair showed CTA’s latest push is attracting more interest, even if some observers say efforts may be coming late. The agency has boosted starting pay as a way to recruit more applicants and compete with other driving and logistics companies. Signage at a recent CTA hiring fair in the West Loop touted an increase in hourly wages.
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