The Freight Transport Association has announced that the industry is still lacking enough skilled drivers. As part of the July Quarterly Transport Activity Survey, carried out by the Association, almost a third of 6,000 freight and logistics businesses said that they were suffering from long delays during the recruitment process.

The freight and logistics sector relies quite heavily on the HGV drivers from abroad. However, because of the ongoing uncertainty of workers’ status as the Brexit negotiations continue, recruiting from this area is proving difficult. In order to combat this, members of the Freight Transport Association have asked for more clarification on the post Brexit circumstances.

A lack of information prevents companies from looking into or implementing long term solutions to the shortage of skilled drivers. This struggle to recruit enough skilled workers is concerning during today’s climate and demand for an efficient supply chain. 57% of the respondents to the quarterly survey said that they are expecting a shortage in HGV drivers going into the second half of 2017. It is vital for the industry going forward that there is a boost in recruitment in order to deal with a number of possible challenges which could then have an impact on the ongoing profitability of Britain.

Those that completed the Survey also reported a weaker level of growth in the domestic freight activity levels in Qi 2017 in comparison to the previous quarter. Alongside this the outturn growth in activity has been reported as lower than the level of growth that was originally predicted in the April 2017 Quarterly Transport Activity Survey.

More positive news from the survey shows that most industrial sectors and regions are expecting a reasonable level of growth in the second quarter, with the majority of freight and logistics businesses predicting strong growth activity in Q3 of 2017.