During their latest meeting, CARTA’s board said they are still facing a driver shortage and are looking at different ways of filling the open positions. One of the board members said that four drivers have also left the company since the last meeting, but that there are three people who are positioned to take their place.
“We’re facing the new pandemic of manpower shortage,” a CARTA official said. “Just to give you an idea, I’ve contacted 47 candidates over the last five months, and of that number, 25 interviewed and we hired 10, and of those 10 only five remain.”
He said part of this is because of job-hopping. He said some people are used to getting Saturdays and Sundays off and don’t want to or are unable to work those days, while others (or those same people) receive a higher-paying job offer at another place.
Executive director Lisa Maragnano said CARTA has tried multiple advertising strategies in order to get the word out. She said she had heard that another agency had gotten good results using Facebook advertising, with them getting somewhere around 30 applications after using this method.
“Hopefully we get the same turnout that they did,” Ms. Maragnano said. “Right now there’s a shortage of every driver type, not just ours.”
The CARTA board also announced they will begin to ramp up service on Monday through Friday to enhanced Saturday-level service in the near future, and that all routes will be operating.