EURES labour shortage report: truck driving profession in top 3

The EURES report on labour shortages and surpluses 2022, produced by the European Labour Authority, provides details on labour shortages and surpluses such as their extent and severity in the EU27 plus Norway and Switzerland.

Furthermore, the report contains insights on the drivers of shortages and surpluses, such as new technologies, the transition to a climate-neutral economy, the ageing of the workforce and conditions of work and employment.

The report found that the greatest profession shortage is for “bricklayers and related workers” followed by “carpenters and joiners”. The profession of lorry driver completed the top 3.

Although the lorry driver shortage was found to be the 3rd most severe overall, almost 3 in 4 countries part of the research ranked their driver shortage as being a “high magnitude”. No other profession came to close to this percentage.

Another area covered by the report is demographics. Lorry driving had the worst gender imbalance of any occupation, with only a percent or so of the workforce being female.

In terms of age, the report found that only 9% of lorry drivers in the EU 27, Switzerland and Norway are under the age of 30.

As for where the driving workforce comes from, a table in the report indicates that around 9% of the lorry drivers in the area covered by the report come from 3rd countries. The same graph also shows that just under 7% comes from other EU nations. The rest are all working in the country of their birth.

When it comes to other professions in logistics, the report found shortages of forklift drivers in Czechia, Croatia, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

Photo: Razvan Socol, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (image cropped)