Some 5 months ago, Claus Normann Hansen, managing director of Danish haulage company Baton Transport, said at a press conference in India that his company and its partners were launching a pilot called “Trucking for Equality” to the public.
The transport company said it was initially looking for 25 Indian women who wanted to work as HGV drivers in Europe for their Hungarian branch.
The salary, as announced at the aforementioned press conference, is the equivalent of 1.6 lakh Indian rupees. This is approximately €1,800, which the company says is the same amount a Hungarian lorry driver doing the same job receives. To earn this salary, the successful applicants will have to work 5 days a week, working 15 hours a day out of which 2×4.5 hours can be spent driving, the Times of India explains.
The drivers will also have accomodation provided to them.
A recent report in Forbes has now revealed that the first female drivers from India to come through the programme are due to begin working in Hungary in just over two weeks.
Viktor Hricz, manager of Baton Transport’s Hungarian subsidiary, told Forbes:
“They are very skilled, according to our calculations, they can already start in the second half of August.”
Hricz added that the company had already recruited several male lorry drivers from India too.
“The driver candidates arriving in Hungary have already obtained their driver’s license and practiced driving thanks to Indian NGOs. After a short career as a taxi driver, they can pass the Hungarian C-category exam, and then apply for a Hungarian residence permit at the Consulate General in Mumbai,” writes Forbes.
The requirements for men are said to be higher, perhaps due to demand and availability of drivers. According to Forbes, the male drivers from India looking to apply for roles at Baton Transport are expected to have C and E category driver’s licenses, as well as several years of professional driving experience.
The drivers who come over will do so on their own, but Forbes writes that Baton Transport provides “informative help” when it comes to relocating family members.
The Forbes piece also touched on Hungary’s driver shortage, currently estimated at around 6,000-8,000 by the country’s haulage association.
Much like in the rest of Europe and beyond, the unattractiveness of the profession, particularly among younger generations, is referred to in the article. Among other things, the text lists long waiting times at RDCs and border crossings, high fines for minor traffic offences, and the high cost of training, as reasons for the driver shortage.
Moreover, the report states that while training is expensive in Hungary, companies like Baton Transport can now take advantage of low or completely free lorry driver training in countries like India. The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that a programme allowing the under 25s access to state-funded HGV training in Hungary has been shut down.
Photo: L.Kenzel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (image cropped and used for illustrative purposes only)