TRUCKERS' SHORTAGE * Belgium - More than 2300 drivers lost each year in road transport

Deficit of 2,350 drivers per year

Brussels,Belgium -Truck & Business, by Claude Yvens -29 April 2011: -- The consequences of the economic crisis are not yet fully absorbed that, already, the driver shortage becomes a concern for the size of Belgian transport. Already, they are no less than 1200 to 1500 drivers who go missing each year in Belgium...  NSSO figures include only people who have a contract of employment in one industry. They thus exclude areas such as the move, trading of fuel (in which companies must have permissions of transport), but also independents and drivers under temporary contracts. They take the cons by foreign drivers working under contract in Belgium...  The latest available figures relate to the fourth quarter of 2009, where 59,804 workers were employed in road transport, only 59.75% as drivers (or 35,732 persons). This proportion is indeed declining for years, confirming the shift towards the logistics activities...  Another calculation of the number of vehicles bearing license to transport reports 55,600 trucks used by the sector in November 2010...   If 3000 drivers each year leave the road transport sector, while only 650 new drivers joining the ranks, the annual shortfall thus reaches 2350 drivers per year...