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Warning: Train drivers now
Page 18
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With 600/0 of operators still struggling to fill vacancies, the industry is
being urged to take on more trainee drivers. Guy Sheppard reports.
OPERATORS ARE being urged to take on more trainee drivers because research indicates that 60% of companies are struggling to fill vacancies.
Skills for Logistics, which was set up last year to boost skills levels and productivity, warns that the UK could be short of 46.000 HGV drivers by next March and damage to the economy could reach £1bn unless immediate action is taken to boost recruitment and retention.
Its research among 1,200 companies involved the largest ever survey into the employment of truck drivers in the UK. It reveals trainees account for 20% of driver recruits; experienced drivers from the military or abroad account for just 6%.
John Bowman, policy director at Skills for Logistics, says: "At the end of the day the only people who can really make a difference are the companies themselves.
"They are the ones that want drivers and will produce them by in-house training or using training providers."
He accepts that driver training does not come cheap and warns there is no bottomless pit of government funding to pay for it: "It is quite an important shift that the industry is having to make by starting to train its own drivers for its own use."