The UK probably shot itself in the foot with Brexit when it comes to the lack of lorry drivers available, but they're not the only ones with a shortage of drivers.

In the province of Granada, transport companies like Lanjatrans in Lanjarón with its 200 articulated lorries or the transport cooperative, Comotrans in Motril with its fleet of 140 lorries are both desperate to find lorry drivers.

But it’s the small, transport company that suffers the most as they cannot compete. Some of them are already in debt having bought new rigs, which are sitting parked up, not earning a cent but costing thousands each month.

There’s not only a shortage of drivers but the ones that there are know that they are a commodity in short supply and are quite happy – who could blame them – to shop around for the highest bidder.

The Asociación del Transporte Internacional por Carretera (Astic) have made the problem known; Spain needs some 15,000 heavy-goods-vehicle drivers over the next five years to cover the sector’s needs.

Unlike the UK, which basically told foreign drivers that they were not welcome, Spain’s problem is that too many are leaving the sector and too few are coming in to replace them; on the one hand you have many who are retiring and on the other hand the life of a long-distance, lorry driver holds little appeal to the younger generation. The balance stands at 20% down.

Then there are the undesirable work conditions: the lack of a family life, long hours and badly paid – many transport companies have screwed down drivers’ salaries and are now paying for it.

The result is that although there is a staggering 40% unemployment level amongst the younger generation, they’re not going to leap into the offered vacancies; hence the existing drivers knowing their worth to the sector and determined to get the best employment conditions for their labour.

Even if you are a young man or woman thinking of joining the sector, the cost of getting an HGV licence is daunting if you’re unemployed and have no shekels to spare.

Even the Chairman of the Asociación General de Transportistas freely admits, “if there are no drivers, it is because we have mistreated them for years.”

The majority of heavy-goods drivers in Granada, of which there are around 2,000, are self-employed, whose average age is well over 40 and the generational hand over comes when they reach between 44 and 55 but as said above, there are no young drivers queueing to take their place and all the time experience at the wheel is dissipating; bleeding away.

For all the grievances expressed by drivers, compared with the lorry drivers of the 60s and 70’s, the present conditions must seem like a luxury, but even so, we don’t live in the past but must lead our lives by the present.

Driverless road-haulage vehicles represent a future that is closer and closer…

(News: Granada, Andalucia)