(16 Dec 2021, 7:16 pm)Driver9*** wrote "Starting salary of £24000"
Absolute bollocks. New starter rate at Arriva Durham/Stockon etc is £10.10/hr, at Jesmond/Blyth/Ashington it's £9.30/hr. To earn that much you would have to work roughly 46 hours a week at Durham and almost 50 hours a week at J/B/A.
Although it says average, your calculations are roughly the same as mine.
I don't know why operators refer to it as a salary either. Unless I'm missing something, bus drivers are generally not salaried staff and instead work on a 'time work' (or hourly rate) basis, rather than a salary being paid in instalments across 12 months, 52 weeks or whatever else.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons we're failing to attract drivers? Working for £24k a year might sound attractive enough to apply, but when you're then told you start on £9.30 an hour (which will be minimum wage come April 2022), the prospect doesn't sound so attractive after all.
(16 Dec 2021, 12:39 pm)Chris 1 wrote I assume that's 190 across Darlington & Stockton, rather than just for Darlington as it reads.
Gotta love the advert for free LGV training alongside the story on the Echo website...
All the more reason to be more attractive than comparative jobs. The value of driving work has been undermined for years, and the consequences of withdrawing from the largest labour market in the world is now showing through.
When you live by capitalism, you die by capitalism.