Public transport professions need 100,000 recruits by 2030 but the sector is at the bottom of young people's career desires

Coach, bus, train drivers but also technical professions... Public and rail transport are regularly talked about to discuss their recruitment problems, even reporting a shortage. And the figures prove them right since the sector must recruit 100.

000 professionals by 2030, in particular because of numerous retirements. But despite its efforts, the sector is struggling to attract people, particularly young people. This disaffection is illustrated in a study* carried out by Norstat for the UTPF (Union of Public and Rail Transport) among young people aged 12 to 18, on their perception of transport professions, their career choices and their knowledge of professional opportunities in the sector.

Even if this population identifies certain advantages of these professions such as their usefulness or the stability of employment (at 89%), urban public transport and rail come last among the twelve sectors tested in the career desires of young people (at 12-13%). The sector comes behind digital (43%), hotels and restaurants (22%) and even construction (19%). Little-known technical professions Some very well-known professions are not very attractive, such as that of train drivers, which is 90% known but which only attracts 34% of respondents aged 12 to 18.

A fairly low figure when compared to the results of SNCF recruitment campaigns which are nevertheless full with tens of thousands of applications. “We have no trouble recruiting,” SNCF Voyageurs explained last year, “we receive 250,000 applications per year, or 50 CVs per position.”

Another lesson is that the more transport becomes part of everyday life, the more young people plan for it. Thus, 22% of young people who use transport every day or almost every day are considering a career in the sector compared to 2% of those who never use it. The sector has been working for years to better highlight its assets to attract people.

Through extensive communication campaigns, visits to colleges, websites, and traveling tours, she tries to highlight her strengths and explain that her jobs are not just about driving. With fairly mixed results since "visible professions such as driver, controller or reception agent are known by 85 to 93% of young people, while technical, engineering, regulation or digital professions fall to 47-62% awareness". Moreover, “after discovering more about the diversity of the professions that make it up, 28% (to consider these professions)”, we can read.

“A result which shows the full potential of a sector whose professions benefit from being better known and embodied.” “This is probably the strongest lesson of the study. It shows that knowledge is a major lever of attractiveness.

It is not enough to promote the sector: we must concretely show the diversity of professions, the training, the prospects for development and give a voice to those who exercise them", underlines Géraldine Adam, Director of Attractiveness, Employment and Training of the UTPF. The fact remains that the sector is still weighed down by its historical preconceptions which are salaries (considered too low) as well as working conditions and work/personal life balance. Here again, the efforts of the profession (increases in wages, better organization of working time, career developments, etc.)

Machine-translated from French