The MBTA has made significant progress at hiring new employees in recent months, but analysts still see “considerable obstacles” in the path ahead, especially given the added costs of building out the workforce.
A hiring blitz during Gov. Maura Healey’s first year in office boosted the MBTA’s headcount by more than 10 percent as the agency works to fill gaps its ranks that drove safety, maintenance and reliability problems for years.
A slew of recent good news coming out of the MBTA should give the state’s business leaders confidence the agency is on the mend. But huge challenges still loom that need immediate attention.
MBTA officials are making some progress in their campaign to staff up, but it’s still not clear when the agency will hit the levels needed to fully restore all weekday subway service from the cuts that have persisted for more than a year.
Leave it to the local press to miss the significance of the first big management move by new T chief Phillip Eng. His new hires aren’t cronies, and they’re not “reinforcements,” either.
The main union representing MBTA workers plans to announce a new contract with the agency Wednesday aimed at taking a bite out of the agency’s employee retention crisis.
The nearly 300,000 people who ride the MBTA’s buses every day could be getting some relief from the crowding and unreliable schedules caused by the T’s major staffing shortages.
On April 15, the MBTA will begin offering $7,500 sign-on bonuses for positions throughout the organization, including bus operators, rail repairers, track laborers, streetcar operators, subway train operators, service technicians and fuelers, officials announced Monday.
The MBTA appears to be on track to start the next fiscal year with staffing levels 20 to 25 percent below what’s required to maintain the system and needs to hire 2,800 workers in the next 12 months to ensure safety and progress, according to a new report, which raises questions about how long staffing-related service reductions will remain in place.
The MBTA is “not making the sort of progress we really want to see” in its efforts to recruit new bus operators, a top official said Thursday, describing ongoing challenges in one of several areas where staffing shortages have bled into service disruptions.
