Hundreds of thousands of drivers lacking in Europe

By: Thomas Ström 12/8/17

Great efforts are now required for the recruitment of young people

 

Truck drivers are a major shortage in large parts of Europe.
There’s talk about a shortage between 7 000 – 10 000 drivers in Sweden.
In Poland the corresponding figure is 100 000, and in England and Germany there’s a total of 65 000.
The lack of drivers has now led to the fact that several haulers are forced to renounce missions due to lack of personnel.
In the long run, this could mean that the retail racks will be empty and Internet purchasers may have to wait longer for their deliveries.

The lack of drivers is historic. According to the TYA - the Vocational Training and Working Environment Council, it is expected that 50 000 new truck drivers will be needed in Sweden in the next ten years.

There are several reasons for this problem. Some examples are an ongoing economic boom, a thriving e-commerce and that older drivers have retired ever since a new vocational qualification was introduced a year ago. Many older people then resigned from the "update", which resulted in them not being allowed to continue to drive.

But the biggest reason is that there are too few new drivers educated. And the reason for this is that the high school's transport programs has had difficulties when recruiting new students in recent years. Obviously, something radical has to be done to attract young people to the driver's occupation.

Another reason is that the Employment Service has not been able to train unemployed to become truck drivers in the last year. I will return to that in upcoming blogposts. It concerns the fact that "there has been a problem with the government's procurement of the professional driver training".

Overall, a great effort is required from the whole industry to get more young people interested in the transport industry and the work as a driver.