Although far from the English mess, there is a shortage of “40,000 truck drivers” in France

Just look at the long queues at the entrances to British petrol stations. A week, English petrol pumps are drip fed, The fault of a kind of funnel effect on truck drivers. Across the channel, the shortage affecting the agri-food sector is caused by the lack of 100,000 “drivers”, which is the result of the Brexit / epidemic double wave. So inevitably, without the arrival of lorries mainly from the eastern countries, the conditions for entry into the kingdom were tightened, which was a public panic.

The population was annoyed as they stood in line for hours to fill up with 10 liters of fuel. Government of Boris Johnson It has therefore resigned to issue 10,500 temporary work visas, of which 5,000 are reserved for single drivers. The opposite balance in British immigration policy, Boris Johnson, has not stopped insisting that the UK is no longer dependent on foreign workers.

50,000 jobs are to be filled across the road-logistics sector

French authorities are closely monitoring the situation in our neighboring countries The last disaster experienced by truck drivers is the episode of Christmas Some of them were stranded for several days unable to return home due to cowardice and untimely border closures. “Today, there is no problem at the border, the British authorities released the ballast under control,” a carrier said. “Last winter, the British issued large orders to create stocks, but we did not identify major difficulties at the customs. The problem is very focused in the United Kingdom and did not prevent the French from delivering English,” said General Representative of the National Federation of Road Transport in Florence.

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However, if road transport continues to operate, the industry will be affected by the labor shortage. Just like catering. According to the FNTR, up to 50,000 people are missing in the entire road-logistics sector. “We are looking everywhere: drivers, forklifts, logistics baptism Jeffrey during the 70th conference of his career.

Evolution of recruitment policies in transport companies

FNTR

The most worrying thing for this sector is that this manpower shortage is not caused by the crisis, Road distributors were heavily involved In particular, to maintain functionality. No, one problem for truck drivers is the combination of difficult working conditions, several weeks away from relatives, with the loss of competition from French companies in major exports, which is highly lucrative. “Since 1997, there have been no French transport companies in the international market. We have lost 85% of the market share. As a result, we are getting less foreign subcontracting,” explains Florence Berthold. With an activity centered on the French market, competition is fierce and growth momentum remains low, although the industry believes that until the industry improves, the population pool should be large enough to fill the gaps. However, according to a recent barometer by FNTR (see above), 53% of business leaders in the industry have difficulty recruiting rolling staff.

“Towards 4.5% increase in spending by 2022”

“This summer, many carriers may have worked harder, but during the holidays, they wanted to lower their wings. There is actually an e-commerce effect, with the turnover of the distribution channel increasing by almost 10% compared to 2019 and reaching 112.2 billion euros. And growth in products (+ 32%) is much stronger than in services (-10%), so more products on the last mile. At the end of the chain, there is more congestion in cities and distribution routes. However, many of these young drivers are paid per package (a few ten cents per unit), while some have to pay between 150 and 200 deliveries a day for an attractive salary.

All of these combined effects will inevitably have an impact on prices. In the United States, leading courier experts such as FedEx or UPS have already warned their core customers that they will raise rates by up to 8% next year! “With all these factors, there should be awareness that road transport will be more expensive. In the middle, the cost increase is estimated to be around 4.5% by 2022. However, in our sector, the margins are lower, averaging 1 to 1.5% on the day. Will they pay? “, Asks Florence Berthold

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Amazon is interested in the principle of “free distribution” – exposure makes transportation experts jump – and maintains its line. But almost everywhere on the Internet, people are beginning to seriously consider “product and cost regulation” to offset the effect of labor shortages. In the United States, chiefs are already on the field. Licensed sporting goods expert Fanatics recently charged customers $ 2 for “storage and packaging” processing. And this is only the beginning.