The International Road Transport Union (IRU) reports a global truck driver shortage of nearly 3 million positions in 2025 — averaging 11% globally, with Europe at 13% and Uzbekistan at 15%. With 3.86 million drivers projected to retire by 2030 — including 660,000 in Europe — and only 4% of European drivers being women, the crisis is structural, not cyclical. Sixty-three percent of European operators say the shortage blocks business expansion, while IRU experts urge coordinated action on retention, infrastructure, and multimodal integration.
According to theloadstar.com, the global truck driver shortage has escalated into a structural threat to freight transport, with nearly 3 million unfilled positions worldwide and an ageing workforce poised to deepen the crisis over the next five years.
Global Scale and Regional Drivers
The International Road Transport Union (IRU) Driver Shortage Report — based on responses from more than 1,000 operators across 18 markets — found that truck driver shortages averaged 11% globally in 2025, equating to approximately 3 million vacant roles. Europe’s shortage rose from 12% to 13% over the past year, while Uzbekistan reported shortages as high as 15%.
Florence Le Guade, IRU road transport research specialist, emphasized that identical headline figures mask divergent regional causes: “Europe and Australia are facing an ‘aging’ problem. Their workforce is retiring faster than young drivers are coming in, while in Uzbekistan… its shortage is driven by booming freight demands,” she explained.
Business Constraints and Market Distortion
Across Europe, 63% of operators reported that the driver shortage was limiting their ability to expand business due to insufficient personnel to serve new customers. Romain Mouton, senior research manager at the IRU, noted that current capacity already meets existing transport demand — both growing slowly — but the shortage severely restricts flexibility: “Operators turn down contracts, as they are better placed to pick the more profitable ones. They can also miss opportunities when capacity runs short.”
This dynamic creates market asymmetry: “One operator’s loss can be another’s win. But it can also push the market towards a flow ceiling, as capacity is missing and higher freight rates for shippers organically limit the market size,” Mouton added.
Demographic Outlook and Workforce Gaps
The demographic trajectory is increasingly alarming. The IRU projects that 3.86 million truck drivers will retire by 2030, representing 12% of the global workforce. Europe alone is expected to lose around 660,000 drivers by the end of the decade — on top of more than 500,000 existing vacancies.
Gender imbalance remains acute: women account for just 4% of truck drivers in Europe, despite comprising 23% of the wider transport workforce. However, targeted recruitment programmes in the Netherlands and Turkey have demonstrated measurable progress.
Retention, Infrastructure, and Systemic Solutions
Dutch operator Jan de Rijk Logistics stressed that retention is now as critical as recruitment. Nadia van de Rijk, HR manager, stated: “Ultimately, the driver shortage is, in my opinion, not only a recruitment issue, it’s also about listening to the employees and creating an environment in which people want to stay.”
Romain Mouton advised shippers to improve driver experience at loading and unloading bays — reducing waiting times and offering waiting facilities. While autonomous driving “will alleviate the driver shortage,” he cautioned that operators face mounting cost pressures, including decarbonisation investments. “The industry will face major driver shortages before autonomous driving could become mainstream, at least, with the current pace,” he said.
Multimodal alternatives such as rail were flagged as complementary, though they too confront transport capacity constraints. “It is not the ultimate solution, not in the short term, but one definitively to investigate,” Mouton noted. The IRU called for deeper coordination among governments, operators, and shippers to improve working conditions, attract younger recruits, and remove regulatory and social barriers to entry. “The shortage is real, and the next four years require deep coordination across all the different stakeholders,” stressed Marianne Kervyn, IRU director of certification and standards.
“When freight volumes in the EU slowed in 2022–23, many expected the shortage to ease. It didn’t. That is a clear sign that this is not cyclical, it’s a structural situation.” — Marianne Kervyn, director of certification and standards, International Road Transport Union (IRU)
Source: The Loadstar
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
