BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — If you've ever wondered what it's like to drive a school bus, just swing by the Brooklyn United Methodist Church Parking lot on a Tuesday morning.
First Student, one of the largest bus companies in the region, has been hosting weekly hiring fairs in the parking lot to attract new drivers.
“It’s kind of difficult to find people. We just don’t know what the school year is going to look like,” assistant site manager Kenya Williams says.
The company needs to hire between 30 and 40 bus drivers to help service the Osseo Area School District this year.
However, the company is looking to hire more than 100 bus drivers across the entire Twin Cities metro.
And that’s just one bus company.
Many other bus companies are also struggling to find drivers this year.
Managers were hoping to see a surge in new applicants once the federal government’s $600 weekly unemployment checks stopped going out, but so far they haven’t seen any changes.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty this year with everything that’s going on,” Williams explains.
First Student has come up with several creative recruiting tactics to bring in more applicants.
The company’s weekly job fairs in Brooklyn Center are highly visible, with large signs up and down Brooklyn Boulevard, and full-sized buses people can take out for a test drive.
"I was just passing by and I saw the sign, so I decided to stop,” Franceis Ross says.
Ross says she already has a job at a local nursing home, but she says she could use a little extra income.
“I didn’t expect to drive a bus today, but when they said I could I just decided to go for it,” Ross says.
She filled out an application with the company and is now waiting to see if she makes it through the screening process.
Bus drivers in Minnesota are also required to have a commercial driver’s license (CDL) before they can start driving.
Managers say getting new drivers in to take their test has been difficult during the pandemic.
Williams says companies are adding more incentives to try and bring in new drivers, but so far they’re only having moderate success.
First Student is currently offering a $1,000 signing bonus to new drivers. The starting salary is also at $19.50 an hour and the company is now offering more flexibility with scheduling.
Williams says drivers can decide between running both the morning and afternoon routes, or just the morning or just the afternoon.
"It's a new day and age you know, this is all new to us. We're all trying to adjust."