{"id":8021,"date":"2012-02-02T18:37:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T18:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=8021"},"modified":"2012-02-02T18:37:44","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T18:37:44","slug":"prospective-bus-drivers-fall-at-first-hurdle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=8021","title":{"rendered":"Prospective Bus Drivers Fall At First Hurdle"},"content":{"rendered":"

National Express West Midlands took on 420 drivers last year<\/a>, out of 4,500 applicants. It \"National<\/a>has a further 170 vacancies \u2013 and yet it can\u2019t fill them, even though there are so many people looking for work. Why?<\/p>\n

It has the admirable recruitment criterion that applicants must not have ANY points on their licences.<\/p>\n

According to the story, the industry \u201cstandard\u201d (I think they used that word to try and suggest it is National Express who is in the wrong) is 3 points for those seeking to become drivers.<\/p>\n

National Express throws out the application without further ado if the applicant has ANY points. It also requires candidates to take literacy and numeracy tests.<\/p>\n

\n

National Express West Midlands spokesman Jack Kelly said: \u201cWe are committed to developing opportunities for people in the West Midlands through Jobcentre Plus.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs well as having a rigorous test people have to have a clean driving licence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Good for them. Let\u2019s hope they aren\u2019t forced to back down \u2013 the article also cites the case of London bus company, Abellio, who went to Poland to find drivers because they couldn\u2019t get suitable applicants \u201camong Britain\u2019s 2.5 million unemployed\u201d (again, implying that Abellio is at fault).<\/p>\n

This is what happens when you dumb down education and don\u2019t punish people who break the law. Eventually, being stupid becomes commonplace. I guess we\u2019re seeing that now.<\/p>\n

But I must confess I am seeing National Express in a much more positive light knowing that they have such high recruitment standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Express West Midlands took on 420 drivers last year, out of 4,500 applicants. It has a further 170 vacancies \u2013 and yet it can\u2019t fill them, even though there are so many people looking for work. Why? It has the admirable recruitment criterion that applicants must not have ANY points on their licences. According […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,86,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-bad-drivers","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}