GonzoEGLL wrote:G-JWTP wrote:PaulB wrote:
So what was their rationale?
We were told that there wasn't enough applicants of a suitable skillset.
Qualifications were not as important as aptitude.
To many people do not think that ATC as a career.
Higher earnings elsewhere, especially for trainees.
Job is not 'sexy' ( my paraphrase).
No body wants to do shift work especially the young who have social lives.
Perception of a high stress environment.
These were the main ones.
G-JWTP
Hmm, I think we’ve answered subtly different exam questions. These are reasons why recruitment is challenging, not why there’s a nationwide, and indeed global, staffing shortage.
To be fair there are genuine issues there....trainee pay among them. However, I’d argue ‘‘twas errr thus. I was on the recruitment team from 2002 to 2009, and apart from the relative increase and decrease of initial trainee pay, nothing else has changed since then.
If you care to read the NATS Interviews thread in another PPlace, which has over 10k posts, in mid October the Jan/Feb courses were full, so I don’t think getting enough people through the selection process is a bottleneck.
I don't even believe to know or guess the issues.
My experience has always to in the first instance to improve the pay and working conditions of those already in post. This stems the general out flow and improves that intangible factor ' staff morale'.
Regular training cycles then inproves the numbers over a much shorter period.
As 'rikur' aspires to, a greater understanding of the work life balance is becoming more important to most other issues.
If budgets are being squeezed from both ends then eventually something will give.
Generally it's staff.
G-JWTP