Metro Trains wants YOU! (But only if you’re a woman)

Metro Trains are seeking applicants for a train driver traineeship program, but only if they are female.

The Metro Trains ‘Train Driver Traineeship’ advertisement on SEEK says they received a huge number of applications from an earlier advertisement, but the overwhelming majority of those applications were from men.

“Only 20% of our applicants were female” the Metro ad said.

“We think a lot of great potential drivers may not be aware how committed MTM is to employing more female drivers, so this time around we are specifically calling our female applicants to put their name forward,” the position description continued.

“This does not mean that we will not be hiring males into Traineeships in 2019.”

Jeroen Weimar, CEO of Public Transport Victoria, said the job advertisement aims to get a broad range of applicants to consider a career at Metro Trains.

“We’ve got 11,000 fabulous train drivers on the Metro Trains network at the moment, and we need to recruit over 100 new train drivers,” he told 3AW’s Tom Elliott.

“There’s a whole lot of targeted marketing going on because we know that, particularly, there are some parts of the community who may not think that this is the kind of role for them.”

Mr Weimar said 25 per cent of train drivers are women, compared to just two per cent ten years ago.

“The goal is that we would like to have a workforce across Metro, across Yarra Trams, across all of our public transport operators, that reflects the city we live in today. Melbourne is now a very diverse place and we think that we should have a workforce that reflects the society that we serve,” he said.

The traineeship position pays $30 per hour, along with 14 weeks paid parental leave.

Press PLAY below to hear what Public Transport Victoria CEO, Jeroen Wiemar, had to say on 3AW Drive.