De Lijn looking for 800 drivers and 100 technicians

The Flemish public transport company De Lijn wants to recruit 800 drivers and 100 technicians this year. To this end, it will organize 14 job days, four for drivers and ten for technicians. “During the job days, everyone can get a taste of a job at De Lijn, learn about the terms of employment and arrangements for obtaining a driver’s license, and even take a test drive,” De Lijn said.

The recruitment campaign started last weekend during the closing event of Flanders Technology & Innovation (FTI) at the Sportpaleis in Antwerp. All information about the job days can be found on the website jobs.delijn.be from Monday, March 25th.

Late last year, there was a communication conflict between De Lijn and the trade unions due to personnel shortages. Due to staff shortages, the public transport company announced that it would have to cancel trips structurally in the Antwerp, Leuven, and Mechelen regions. The Christian trade union ACV Openbare Diensten was not pleased with the communication because, according to them, the problem is too few buses and insufficient staff.

High turnover?

According to figures from the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, De Lijn recruited 356 drivers in 2021. Of these, almost a quarter were gone again before the end of 2022. In 2020, De Lijn hired 641 drivers. After one year, 562 remained, and after two years, 525. That turnover – one in five De Lijn drivers quit within two years – means that in 2022, 1,04% of trips could not be driven.

De Lijn believes that turnover is “very low” compared to other companies, although it acknowledges higher turnover in the early years. Still, the company says that it is also a social trend. It has also started installing bus screens to give drivers a more enclosed steering position just because drivers are facing more aggression.

De Lijn, recently caught up in a storm because of its new transport scheme, employs nearly 8,000 people and has a fleet of 2,250 buses and 400 streetcars.