Serbia lacks 35,000 people behind the wheel of buses and trucks.
The ads are full of offers, but there are still not enough drivers. We lack almost 35,000 people behind the wheel of buses and trucks, and even a salary of 3,500 euros is not enough for them to report for work. Because of this, Serbia is forced to import labor, and the director of the Road Transport Business Association Srbijatransport Belgrade says that they are our future.
Goran Aleksić, traffic engineer and general director of the business association Road Traffic Srbijatransport Belgrade, tells RTS that data on the shortage of 20,000 drivers that is most often mentioned from 2019, and that the situation has further worsened since then.
“Since then, the influx of new drivers has been significantly reduced, so that outside of high schools, through professional competence, around a thousand new drivers have arrived, while around 15,000, 16,000 were needed,” Aleksić said.
That shortage of drivers is compensated by workers who come, for example, from India. “Carriers see that the only way to overcome this is to bring in labor from the outside, so we also recommended certain respectable agencies on our website that could bring in workers in order to maintain the road transport activity,” said Aleksić.
Drivers coming from abroad can only work in internal transport. Aleksić is satisfied with them and points out that they are our future.
“It is unlikely that we will replace them from domestic resources. So, their training in the coming period is one of the important segments,” said Aleksić. Thirty percent of licensed drivers over the age of 55 He explains that we have 170,000 licensed drivers, of which more than 50,000 are over the age of 55, and about 15,000 are under the age of 30.
“Only in the coming period, an even bigger gap and the problem of the lack of an important resource for carrying out transport activities are being prepared”Aleksic said.
One of the reasons for the small number of new drivers is the demographic situation in Serbia, as a result of the check, there are fewer people who are training for that profession, and, on the other hand, there has been a greater volume of economic growth and greater demands for transportation.
“From 2015 to today, domestic declarations that are both export-import have increased by over 56 percent in international transport, and when it comes to transit, it has increased by over 86 percent,” Aleksić pointed out.
