FEATURE: Foreign recruits get behind wheel as Hiroshima bus shortage bites

HIROSHIMA - Faced with a worsening shortage of bus drivers, a Hiroshima transport company has turned to Indonesia for help, hiring two foreign nationals who hope to begin carrying passengers on regular routes by the end of the year.

Saeful Ulum, 49, and Thiery Corompis, 36, joined Hiroshima Kotsu in April as prospective drivers, in what the company says is the first such recruitment of foreign nationals by a bus operator in Hiroshima Prefecture.