Due to a recent legal change, the province needs to come up with more money to hire more drivers for its public buses. This comes amid an already pronounced labor shortage in the transportation sector across the country. Mike Laidman reports.
There are 193 public bus drivers in Jeju.
They work every other day for an average for 14 hours.
Driving a bus had previously been categorized as a job to which the working hour limit did not apply. Therefore, limitless overtime work used to be allowed.
However, bus drivers will now not be able to work more than 68 hours per week because of the revision of the Labor Standard Act.
Beginning in July of 2019, their working hours will be limited to 52 per week.
The new overtime limit is 12 hours per week.
Currently, if drivers work 14 hours during every shift, their overtime hours would amount to 24 hours per week - double the legal limit.
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154 additional drivers to be hired this year
The province will therefore hire 154 new drivers this year so that each bus has two drivers per day.
There have already been 44 drivers hired since May, and another 110 will be hired by the end of the year.
However, the recruitment will likely not go as smoothly as planned as the manpower shortage in the transportation industry is just as serious nationwide.
INTERVIEW
Ko Gyeong-hyo / Provincial official in charge of public bus system
We’re planning to hire 154 drivers by January 1, 2019. If we can’t, the drivers will be hired by next July.
<인터뷰 : 고경효 / 제주도 공영버스 담당>
"내년 1월 1일 전면 시행을 목표로 추진하고 있습니다. 혹시 올해 채용이 안 되면 내년 7월까지는 전부 채용할 수 있도록."
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Province needs additional ￦5.5b
Now, the province needs to secure an extra 5.5 billion won in its 2019 budget for the soon-to-be-doubled personnel expenditures.
[Reporter] Mike Laidman
[Camera] Park Byeong-joon
But for now, in order to shoehorn the current laws with the current routes, some working shifts could be made longer, or some routes could even be removed in the process of trying to resolve this public transportation crisis.
Mike Laidman, KCTV
