NUREMBERG: Seated before the tram's control panel, Benedikt Hanne, 24, deftly steered the red and white wagons, hours before heading to his Nuremberg university to study for a social work degree. As an apprentice, Hanne was watched closely by a trainer, and the tram he drove had no passengers. Bu
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.
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 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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.