Tokyo city buses to cease late-night service at end of March due to driver shortage

19 comments

1. We can expect to see more of this going forward. Japanese people don’t want to do jobs like driving buses late at night, and we can’t have foreigners doing it because reasons, so….

2. Dang, if only there was a clear solution to this… but shoganaiiii ne

3. drivers are paid quite well too. They’ve probably been operating at a loss for awhile still. Still a shame.

4. What’s the view over there of bus divers in general? Is it looked down on? 

5. Once services like these are gone, they’re never coming back

6. How will they pin this on foreigners?

   Edit: Some triggered fella sent me a troll-“someone is considering suicide or serious self-harm” note over this post. Why are Japanese nationalists so easily triggered?

7. I wonder how much this will affect the local late-night economy.

8. Autonomous buses

9. If only there was a growing group of people willing to work for a fair wage….

10. You know what could fix that? Foreign workers. And you know what won’t fix that? Shitty anti foreigner policies. Or Ai.

11. Rip. I used to use this bus. It’s more expensive but it was always full. Might mean that stores close earlier because it’s hard enough to find people who work at these hours.

12. it will never come back

    No new local driver

    And don’t want foreign driver

    So you better start reproducing, my Japanese friends

    And reproduce more

13. I see a lot “Look at the UK! Look at Germany!” type posts on Japanese social media, with photos of poorer, multicultural areas.

    Japanese people fear their country becoming like the West due to immigration, but it’s actually becoming more like the West because of things like this. Underfunding of infrastructure, greed, stubbornness, division, etc. These services don’t come back once they’re gone. They become an unnecessary cost once people have adjusted to a worse standard of living.

14. Hmmm I wonder what could ease this shortage…

15. In suburb of Tokyo….. many bus already stopped after 8 pm due to shortage of bus drivers.

    It is known for a long time that this shortage will occur, and it is just the first, less painfull step of a decreasing society.

16. Man.. just hired an international worker, they’re willing to work though.

17. My close friend is a bus driver. He loves trains and buses and he enjoys being part of the transit system. However, he had to quit his job, or more like we forced him to quit when he showed signs of serious mental and physical degradation following his excessive overwork. He started acting weird. His logic went all over the place. So we made him quit.
    He then went to multiple different jobs but he discovered that bus driving is the only thing he could do. So now he is searching for another bus company with better working conditions.
    The problem is that most bus companies don’t want to hire people with experience because they want to hire young people to pay less. So for now he is jobless. Even though he has multiple professional national licenses such as public driving, operating special machineries and dangerous chemicals, he has no job other then part time jobs that pay only 90000 yen per month. You cannot sustain with this salary! Unless bus drivers get better pay and working conditions, the situation will not change.

    Sorry for my terrible English. It is not my first language!

18. The solution is clear. Restrict visas and chase foreign workers out the country. That will surely fix this problem, and others.

19. Honestly for Tokyo it is fine but country side where metro line are not that popular that would be a problem

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