The whole world is suffering from the truck driver shortage in this period.
The survey on the degree of truck driver shortage carried out by the IRU, the world road transport organisation, shows an increase in the lack of truck drivers in 2021. This is a problem that affects all European countries, but it also concerns China, Uzbekistan and Mexico. The reduction in road freight volumes is associated with the Covid-19, but in all the countries the shortage of qualified professional truck drivers and of new hires in the sector are the main causes of the truck drivers shortage, in addition to difficult working conditions and the challenges of including women and young people. Another relevant aspect is the worldwide decline of the percentage of drivers under the age of 25: despite the high rate of youth unemployment in many countries, the average age of truck drivers is 50 years.
This lack of truck drivers has led to reduced vehicles availability on the roads, increased costs, and operational problems for transporters and freight forwarders. Transport companies focus on training new employees, allocating important resources to hire new truck drivers and to provide the necessary skills according to the professional standards of the sector.
As part of professional retraining of the workers in the road transport sector, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region provides contributions for the achievement of the Driver Qualification Card (CQC). We talked about in this article.
