South-east Queensland needs 500 extra bus drivers, and until they’re on board, bus cancellations and disruptions will continue, Queensland’s Bus Industry Council said on Tuesday.

The body’s top two priorities for filling the yawning employment gap are attracting overseas drivers and luring pensioners back to work.

Last Friday, 205 buses across Queensland were either cancelled or disrupted – well above the average of 80 a day in 2022 and almost 10 times the expected disruption rate of 20 to 30 each day.

Queensland’s Bus Industry Council, the state’s peak body for bus travel, represents 19 bus operators.

Its executive director, David Tape, said he wrote to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in mid-2022 asking that bus drivers be added to Australia’s skilled migration program amid an unemployment rate in Queensland of just 4 per cent.

Tape agreed with Rail Back on Track’s observation that bus services were being affected daily in the south-east corner, Toowoomba and Mackay.

“Unfortunately, when you start to blow services out from half-hourly to hourly or whatever, or services are cancelled, it has a real flow-on effect,” Tape said.

“People can’t get to work, can’t get to medical appointments, education or whatever, and then there is the whole social and recreational impact.

“So yes, it is having a big impact on the services that our service delivery partners can provide.”