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Recruitment challenges front of mind for freight and logistics employers, says FTA
Freight driver vacancies remain the most difficult to fill, according to the Freight Transport Association's October Quarterly Transport Activity Survey (QTAS), sponsored by Santander Corporate Banking.
The FTA’s QTAS is a quarterly survey of business opinion within the logistics sector, based typically on a sample size of around 150 FTA members. The results help to produce an indicator of current and future business sentiment, as well as conditions in the logistics sector and external factors influencing efficiency.
UK economy continues to grow
The October 2017 survey was conducted against a backdrop of Sterling’s continued weakness on the foreign exchange markets. However, the UK economy has grown for the nineteenth consecutive quarter with preliminary estimates indicating that GDP output rose by 0.4% in Q3 2017, with growth still led by the service sectors.
Employment and vacancies rose, whilst unemployment fell in the three months to August 2017. This is expected to add more pressure to employers to increase wages to retain skilled workers in the months ahead, with inflation set to rise further.
Driver vacancies still a concern
The issue of driver shortages remains the primary concern of QTAS respondents. Driver vacancies were the most difficult posts to fill with over 32% of respondents reporting long delays in Q3 2017 and over 67% revealing that they’ve had issues contracting qualified agency drivers.
Just over 58% of respondents also anticipate a shortage of HGV drivers in Q4 2017 which indicates that this is an ongoing problem. In Q3 2017 there was also continued concern regarding filling transport manager and technician roles with 24% and 30% respectively of those surveyed reporting long delays in recruitment.
More detail on the survey results can be found in the full report.
Read about how we keep things moving for our Transport & Logistics customers.
