Pennsylvania, short of bus drivers, will mail 375,000 people with commercial-vehicle licenses to ask them to plug the gaps

• Pennsylvania has called on 375,000 commercial license holders to ease the bus driver shortage.
• It will mail details on the shortage to every licensed driver in the state, an official told AP.
• Pennsylvania has 42,000 school bus drivers - the fewest in five years, the official said.

Pennsylvania has appealed to 375,000 local drivers with commercial-vehicle licenses to plug the gaps in the state's bus driver shortage, officials told AP on Thursday.

Pennsylvania currently has 42,000 school bus drivers, which is down 2,000 from 2017 and the lowest number in five years, Kurt Myers, the state's Department of Transportation (DOT) deputy secretary for driver and vehicle services, told AP.

The shortage has made it hard to get some students to and from school, Myers told AP.

The DOT planned to contact all current holders of a commercial driver's license (CDL) in Pennsylvania, Myers said. The DOT will also tell the CDL holders how to qualify to become a school bus driver, Myers told AP.

He also said that the state's DOT would provide an extra day of CDL skills testing every week on a Monday for four consecutive weeks, starting October 18.

"We want to do everything we possibly can to expand the number of individuals with school bus endorsements to be able to get our children to school. That's the critical part of all of this," Myers told AP.

Insider has reached out to the DOT for comment.

Pennsylvania isn't the only state scrambling for drivers.

A Delaware charter school said in August it would give parents $700 per child to drive their kids to school. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker activated 250 National Guard members to help transport students to school.

In an effort to tackle its own shortage, New York state said September 20 that it would ask more than 550,000 commercial driver's license holders if they'd become school bus drivers.

Meanwhile, businesses across the US are struggling with a labor shortage that's hitting multiple industries. Some workers say they don't need to take low paid jobs in such a competitive labor market.