Austrian national rail operator ÖBB needs a rather sizable influx of new employees in the coming year. The company is expecting approximately 9,000 workers to retire by 2030, and as a result, the company needs 4,100 new employees annually on average.
It does not seem like ÖBB needs to worry about a lack of interest from applicants. The operator received 120,000 job applications throughout 2024. “It is a great challenge to handle this volume of applications in a respectful manner”, the company’s CEO Andreas Matthä commented, according to Austrian media. ÖBB hired 6,200 new employees in the past year.
ÖBB is particularly in search of technicians, and is making an attempt to attract them with two 2,500-euro training bonuses, travel discounts and company housing.
In order to meet the company’s demands, it took on 15 Tunisian employees last year as warehouse technicians and mechanics. The operator was planning to extend its foreign hiring plan to train attendants, drivers and shunters.
Hiring methods criticised
The Vida trade union criticised ÖBB hiring methods, saying that it was putting all sorts of positions on the “short-supply list”, allowing it to hire from abroad. “The government is thus risking further wage and social dumping as well as a weakening of safety and training standards”, the union said at the time.
In January 2024, Vida complained that workshops were at their limit and the company was short in staff. According to ÖBB however, the company did not have a staff shortage. “We do not have a shortage of staff, we have a need for staff, a very high need for staff”, a representative explained in January 2024.
