This summer, 23 million users used this mode of transport, a record figure. However, there are no longer enough drivers to provide all the rail connections. The announced shortage is national, it would miss 1200 agents.
For lack of personnel, the SNCF must remove trains. Consequence of a lack of organization according to Erik Mayer, trade unionist Sud Rail: “ There is a lack of anticipation by the management of the SNCF, at the end of the Covid crisis. In 2020 and 2021, there was almost no recruitment, so departures were not compensated. We have a strategy department that did not assess a recovery in traffic before the end of 2023 or even 2024, when it is there and higher than the level of traffic we had in 2019. »
Another reason for this lack of personnel: increasingly difficult working conditions, according to the railway worker. ” You work nights, days, weekends, holidays, you have a schedule that is often not known in advance. For the basic salaries that are offered, people are not interested in not knowing if they are going to be at home on the weekend, not knowing if they are going to return in the evening two days later… »
The shortage affects other services. There is a shortage of nearly 300 agents for the maintenance of high-speed trains.