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SINGAPORE: Higher starting pay could attract people to join the public bus industry, but retaining them will remain an uphill task, several bus captains told CNA.<\/p>\n
This is because better wages and bonuses alone are unlikely to convince newcomers to stay on beyond a year and build lasting careers in the industry, as the job involves early start times, long hours behind the wheel, gruelling split-shift arrangements as well as accident risks, they said.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday (Jun 3), the government announced it will fund an increase of S$450<\/a> (US$350) a month for the starting salaries of new Singaporean and permanent resident bus captains from next year.<\/p>\n Together with a S$2,000 increase in sign-on bonuses, new local bus drivers can effectively earn S$600 more a month in their first year. This will take their average monthly salaries to more than S$4,000, including overtime pay, bonuses and allowances.<\/p>\n In comparison, the median starting salaries for university graduates in 2025 was around S$4,500 a month, according to a graduate employment survey this year.<\/p>\n Acting Minister for Transport Jeffrey Siow said on Wednesday that a larger pool of bus captains will also allow for improvements in working conditions, including shift arrangements, and “make bus driving a more sustainable career”.\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts and industry insiders said the job is inherently demanding, adding that higher salaries would help make the role more attractive and also improve retention at the same time.<\/p>\n While the higher starting pay would attract more people to join, several bus captains who spoke to CNA said they have seen many younger colleagues join and leave shortly after, despite several rounds of salary increments and sign-on bonus hikes in previous years.<\/p>\n One Singaporean bus captain, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media, said: \u201cI think most of the newcomers will join the industry without a full understanding of what bus captains deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond driving safely, bus captains have to handle customer service, long hours on the road and take on split-shift assignments, said the driver, who is in his 30s.<\/p>\n For such assignments, drivers will start their shifts to cover the morning peak period and go for their breaks after that. They will then resume working another shift in the evening peak period. Bus captains are not paid for the rest time between their shifts.<\/p>\n Many new drivers may not be prepared for these demands, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see the retention rate improving in the short term,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Another bus captain, who wanted to be known only as Mr Chong, said the prospect of waking up as early as 3am to drive the first bus, which leaves the depot before 5am, could come as a rude shock to some new joiners.<\/p>\n \u201cCould they endure it, waking up at 3am regularly? This job also doesn’t have regular mealtimes, or working hours,\u201d said Mr Chong, a Singapore permanent resident. \u201cSome can do it for a few months, but many can\u2019t handle it for years.\u201d<\/p>\n The bus captain of 10 years, who is in his 40s, said he has seen local bus captains join the industry only to leave after six months to a year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE: Higher starting pay could attract people to join the public bus industry, but retaining them will remain an uphill task, several bus captains told…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WAGES NOT THE ONLY FACTOR<\/h2>\n
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