Truck drivers shortage: -30K in Italy and -500K in Europe

The war in Ukraine exposes an huge shortage of truck drivers as in Italy as in Europe.

In Europe we witnessed in the late summer – early autumn 2021 to the rise of the truck drivers crisis. Nevertheless, today’ situation seems to be huger than the past one, since Assologistica data says in Italy the truckers shortage is about 30 thousands. Assologistica vice president Renzo Sartori said that after Covid-19 blow up on March 2020 a lot of foreign truck drivers (expecially “Ukranian, Moldovans and Romanians“) never came back to Italy. Then, he focused on the las mile problem, which explain the main switch from B2B to B2C business. Furthermore, since 2016 we witnesses an deep lack of young truckers which do not replace olders.

The european situation is possibly worst: International Road Transport Association (Astic) said the the Russian war created a -166 thousands truck drivers lack. Keep in mind that on 2021 the trucker shortage was about 380 thousands. The European Road Freight Rate Development Benchmark explained the shortage State by State: Great Britain -80/100 thousands, Poland -80K, Germany -57/80K, Romania -71K, France -34K, Spain -20K, Lithuania -10K, Netherland -7K and belgium -4K (Astic, Upply, TI data).