Where and why is there a shortage of people willing to work as drivers?
- Wojciech Paprocki
- 7 lip
- 5 minut(y) czytania
In 1952, six countries: Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy established the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which in 1958 became the European Economic Community (EEC). These are the countries that, today, as they did 75 years ago, have the greatest economic potential in Europe. Their inhabitants, including a growing number of immigrants, enjoy a higher standard of living than the average for the existing European Union (EU), which comprises 27 member states. However, the group of countries mentioned does not represent a uniform standard of living. The standard of living (and consequently the average labour costs) in Luxembourg is above average. The standard of living in Italy, the only country among the six founders of the ECSC that is classified as Southern Europe rather than Western Europe, like the other five countries, remains well below average.
The gradual increase in average wages has led to a decline in the number of professional drivers in these six countries over many years. More and more transport tasks, mainly related to international trade, were outsourced by shippers to carriers from other countries. Currently, there are almost no drivers in these countries who perform international transport, i.e. bilateral or multilateral (transit and cross trade) trade flows. Since 1990, and on a large scale since 2004, when the EU expanded to include eight countries from Central Europe, shippers began to use the cheaper services of carriers from other EU countries. The choice of carriers was not only determined by the difference in operating costs between carriers registered in the six countries mentioned above and carriers from Central Europe. It was a reaction to the decline in the availability of services provided by local carriers, who over the years had experienced an increasing shortage of people willing to undertake long-distance transport requiring working for many days or even several weeks without returning to their permanent place of residence.
The scale of the variation in employer costs in the five Central European countries and the two Iberian countries in relation to the average cost in the five Western European countries is shown in Table 2.
As a result of the increase in imports of road freight transport services in many Western European countries, primarily France, road hauliers have focused on performing only tasks that serve local and interregional transport needs. They have withdrawn from servicing the exchange of goods between partners in their own country and partners abroad. The reduction in the scope of transport services provided by carriers has resulted in a lower demand for drivers on the labour market. There is a match between the needs of employers and the aspirations of job seekers who avoid work that requires them to be away from home for many days, especially during weekends.
In the economy of a country where carriers cannot undertake international transport orders, the handling of international trade in goods depends on the import of transport services. Global geopolitical changes have triggered the vigilance of many shippers, who are building the resilience of their businesses to the risk of losing access to sources of imported raw materials, components and finished products. In the six Western European countries mentioned above, there is a growing awareness of the risk of limited access to services provided by carriers from Central Europe. The scale of this risk is revealed in various reports estimating the shortage of drivers who are or would be willing to transport goods abroad and stay away from home for long periods of time, while performing transport tasks in the cross-trade and cabotage segments in third countries.
A report prepared by the IRU shows that there is a relatively small shortage of drivers in France, 23,600 jobs on offer. This is a good example that illustrates the phenomenon described above. Since road transport operators from France are not involved in the transport of international goods, they are not looking for drivers willing to perform such tasks. More than twice as many drivers (51,700) are sought by carriers in Poland, as many of them (approximately 40,000 companies) have been involved in providing transport services abroad for years, including between France and other EU-27 countries and between France and the UK. Table 3 shows the relative and absolute shortage of drivers in selected European countries. In order to see the relationship between the number of drivers employed and the economic activity in individual countries, the GDP reported in 2024 is included in this table.
While in Western Europe the employment of a large number of drivers is primarily related to meeting local and national transport needs, in other countries it is also linked to the involvement of carriers in cross-trade and cabotage services. A large proportion of drivers leave their home country in various geographical directions to handle exports and imports, and then remain abroad and serve shippers in third countries until they make the return journey with imported goods, and in special cases without any load at all.
Statistics on truck traffic at border crossings between Poland and Germany show that every week, between 50,000 and 60,000 drivers working for carriers registered in Poland leave (and return) from Poland in a westerly direction. Some of them, after delivering goods exported from Poland, remain outside the country for many days or even several weeks. They perform further transport tasks, including those related to the transport of goods imported and exported to France.
The continuing disparity between the level of wages in the six countries that founded the ECSC and the level of wages in Central European countries and the Iberian countries will continue to create conditions that favour the import of transport services among shippers in these six countries. Wage growth in the countries surrounding these six countries would have to be very dynamic for carriers to have to significantly increase the prices of their cross-trade and cabotage services. This process may take place, but it will be gradual.
However, there is a specific risk factor that could accelerate the process of reducing imports of transport services by shippers from the six Western European countries. This is the widening generation gap among professional drivers who are willing to work outside their country of residence for long periods of time. As older drivers retire, they are being replaced by smaller cohorts. In addition, with generational changes, there is a growing preference among aspiring drivers for a better work-life balance.
How will the labour market situation change in the six founding countries of the EWSiS when Central European carriers lose part of their workforce as a result of the retirement of numerous drivers born before 1970? It is desirable to adjust the method of examining the labour market situation in all EU-27 countries in order to identify how staffing needs and access to workers may develop if the scale of road transport services imports in Western Europe is reduced due to a lack of sufficient staffing capacity among carriers from Central Europe.
It can be expected that in the coming years the shortage of drivers will intensify in Western European countries and an imbalance in the transport services market will become apparent. The lack of access to an adequate number of road transport services poses a threat to the smooth and efficient functioning of supply chains across Europe.
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