Did you guys know in the UK the average train driver is 46 years old, white, and male?
This is very bad, according to the BBC, and it must be changed.
While we're here, check out the beauty of a community note this baby received:
🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, like, of course you're going to have a bunch of old white guys driving the trains. The country is overwhelmingly white and the driving professions will always be dominated by men. That's just reality.
I guess the BBC hates reality?
Now, back to the BBC and their obsession with diversity in [checks notes] train driving.
The average train driver is 46 years old, male and white, according to new data compiled by an industry body.
The National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) figures show that only one in ten drivers are non-white, with even fewer being women.
The rail industry has long recognised itself as being one of the least diverse employment sectors.
Southern Railway said it is trying to enable a wider range of people to apply for jobs.
And they are enabling a wider, more diverse range of applicants, thanks to head of talent, diversity, and inclusion at Southern railway Zoey Hudson, who looks exactly how you'd expect her to look.
Why is it always a progressive white lady with a lesbian haircut?
I'll never understand this.
Here's what Zoey had to say.
Zoey Hudson … said recruitment methods had changed to enable a wider range of people to apply for jobs.
'It's really important that we have diversity of thinking within the railway, which is as important as diversity of ethnicity,' she said.
I'm pretty sure you actually need a singularity of thinking within the railway. The people driving the trains need to be laser-focused on delivering passengers safely. It doesn't matter what they look like or believe as long as they are qualified!
'It freshens us as an organisation, it brings creativity, so that we get different people enriching the working environment for the railway of the future. Ultimately, the railway will look and feel different, and that will make a more successful business.'
Translation: Diversity crashes are coming!
And while train drivers are still overwhelmingly old and white (91.5% men, 8.5% women; 90.8% white, 9.2% non-white), it looks like things are getting more progressive in the UK train game.
NSAR also compiled statistics for drivers under the age of 40. It found the proportion of female drivers is significantly higher for this younger group, at 14%. The proportion of non-white drivers is higher too, also at 14%.
NSAR told the BBC: 'Indicators are heading in the right direction, often as a result of government action to improve the deployment of apprenticeships for new train drivers.
'Average age is decreasing, gender balance increasing.'
So things are getting "better" and the future is bright, according to the gender studies majors who now run the show when it comes to recruiting train drivers.
I can't help but wonder how long it'll be before one of these female train drivers somehow discovers a curb out there on the rail line somewhere!
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