APPLETON, Wis. — If you can drive a bus, Valley Transit would like to speak with you. It might be worth your time, and there’s money involved.

The City of Appleton bus service needs drivers, and to sweeten the pot, it is offering a $5,000 bonus for full-time drivers and $2,500 for part-time drivers.

“Certainly ridership is ticking upwards since COVID,’’ said Valley Transit general manager Ron McDonald. “But that hasn’t been the impetus in starting this bonus program. It’s really a lack of talent that’s causing the issue.”

Like every other business in the community, McDonald said, Valley Transit is struggling to hire. He said the incentive program was one way of peaking people’s interest in the bus company and to get some qualified individuals to apply.

To qualify for the bonus, applicants must have a Class A or Class B commercial driver’s license with a passenger endorsement and no air-brake restriction. McDonald said Valley Transit is looking for 10 drivers. After just a week into the bonus program, they have already hired two. The salary range for the position is about $21 to $26 an hour.

McDonald said the goal is to return to the level of services customers need.

“When we reduced our levels of service previously, because of lack of staffing, we displaced a lot of people who are going to work and other places, medical appointments,” said McDonald. “Above 54% of our ridership was people going to work.”

That meant many had to make other arrangements for travel, such as riding earlier or finding alternative methods of transportations.

McDonald said that once they hire more drivers, they will re-implement services that were removed. Part of that will involve studying how travel patterns have changed for people.

Steve Tomasik, transit operations manager for the City of Oshkosh and Go Transit, said the driver shortage is a widespread issue.

“Pretty much every agency [is looking for drivers],” he said. “Some worse than others. But I don’t know a single agency that isn’t out looking for somebody.”

With the number of baby boomers leaving the workforce earlier than expected, the competition to hire people in all industries has never been higher.

“There’s so many different options to go,’’ Tomasik said. “Older drivers aren’t coming back that maybe would have. Or maybe you have a career and you want to maybe relax a little bit from spending 16 hours on the road as a truck driver. You’d used to get some drivers, maybe along those lines. But that source has definitely dried up.’’

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