Hit by worker shortage, German city gets students to drive trams
Hit by worker shortage, German city gets students to drive trams
www.channelnewsasia.com
Hit by worker shortage, German city gets students to drive trams
59 comments
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I don't know what the current pay rate is for that job, but I am certain that if the pay was double of whatever it is now the worker shortage would suddenly vanish!
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Germany: "NEIN IMMIGRANTS, NO MORE!"
Also Germany: "Why can't we replace the workers of our aging population?! Where did we go wrong?"
EDIT: Btw these aren't children, it's university students older than 21.
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In this case it's a giant housing shortage though. The city (and large surrounding area) is Freiburg in the south. Rents are so expensive and available flats are so rare that companies don't find workers who could actually live there. Also: the comparably good loans don't mean much when it's only channeled into a greedy landlord's pockets.
Edit: oh no i was wrong it's Nuremberg - their public transport organization is also "VAG". But Freiburg has a huge labor shortage due to unaffordable housing and housing shortage.
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By housing the students in the trams, they are freeing valuable real estate.
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It's practically the same. Nürnberg has a joined University with it's neighbouring city, Erlangen. Erlangen has the highest rent per square meter (if you're not eligible for student housing). It's high prices for the whole region, because the Nürnberg-Erlangen metro region is the biggest population, business and cultural center in the north of Bavaria.
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Immigration isn't a the cause of all our problems. But it also isn't the solution to all our problems.
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Idk I feel like having more working people would solve not having enough working people.
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Pay people more? No, no, bring in cheap labour from overseas!
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That is fair, too, Germany's minimum wage is €12 which is slightly more than half of their neighbouring Switzerland's 23 CHF per hour. I bet tons of people would be willing to drive a tram if they payed more.
That said, I don't think it's nice to refer to immigrants as "cheap labour from overseas" especially when the alternative is literally children.
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This seems like a weird headline. Maybe "Student gets a part time job while at University" would be a better headline.
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Perhaps they reduced barrier of entry for these jobs, allowing for working less hours, flexible schedules, less training time, etc.
Edit: seems i was right aftwr actually reading the article. They mention part-time, working arouns their classes, ans this:
They are also expected to take on extra homework to make up for the accelerated pace of the course, which is half the length of regular training.
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Yeah, at my university it was pretty common for students to take on bus driver jobs. A tram is, admittedly, a bit different from that, but a job is a job.
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Man if i got to wear a jacket that said VAG on it, I'd work for free.
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"I'm the state sponsored VAG inspector, I'm gonna need to see your ticket or ass."
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So where do you think the clit is?
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Nuremberg. The German city is Nuremberg. It's a beautiful medieval city.
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Medieval because of the lack of tramway driver?
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Medieval because of Bavarian Landtag voting in medieval shit.
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It's never a worker shortage, it's a reasonable wage shortage.
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You will need to learn at least a little German. There are definitely prospects though, the country is trying to attract more immigrants.
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Attract more immigrants who have years of experience in specific high-qualification professions
You can get in there as someone who's worked as an engineer for 3 years or something, but it's unlikely for someone who's not an EU citizen to be able to get employment there to drive trams.
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I used to drive a bus for my university
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Don't those things practically drive themselves?
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Yes. Although if it's not on an entirely separated path, it likely is still better to have a driver.
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59 comments
Fucking hell. PAY PEOPLE MORE you cheap shits.
I didn't see pay listed in the article.
How else do we explain worker shortage? Where did all the people go? Rapture?
On the other side, what better way for a social worker to see real issues and people while studying?
It has to pay well enough for students to be willing to distract from studying.
If the situation in Germany is anything like the Netherlands, it legit is just a shortage of workers outright.
There are more job vacancies than people to fill those vacancies, so you end up with a shortage of workers.
Making tram driving more attractive by paying them more would draw employees away from other industries, who also need people to do the work.
Not saying tram drivers shouldn't be paid more, but if the situation in this German city is anything like what we are dealing with here in the NL, then paying people more is not going to solve the issue. Only solution is to either decrease the number of open positions (which usually only happens in a recession, which is not great), or to increase the number of people who can do the work (for example through immigration)
Edit: A possible solution specifically in the case of trams could be automation (self-driving trams), which would relax the overall demand for workers.
There are already transportation system without drivers that have been operating since the 80s (e.g. the London DLR)
It's probably a bit more tricky in mixed traffic, but since trams are on predictable rails it would be easier than automating cars.
How is one seeing issues when they are concentrating on the road? Just the view of them is enough?
Nein.
I won't do it for at least ten
Pay for tram operators here in Germany isn't that bad actually. Yes could definitely be more, but we've a general worker shortage here so that plays a lot into it.
I dislike this response. The "raise the pay" folks don't just mean people living in poverty.
The pay is not yet sufficient to pull people from their next best alternative. A labor shortage can be fixed by paying more than the next best option.