Looking forward to the next couple of decades, it would appear that trucking industry in Australia is going to suffer from a series of shortages of just about everything which makes the industry tick.
First of all, the issue which is already affecting the industry is a shortage of personnel. It’s not just skilled personnel, it’s simply personnel into the future, the trucking industry is not an attractive one for the current generation coming through now, and moving out into the world of work.
Average ages working in truck cabs, operations, offices and workshops is going up consistently, with no prospect of serious increase in the new blood coming into the industry. We talk about making it more attractive to younger people but our initiatives appear to be in adequate and often ineffective.
The fact of the matter is, it’s not only our industry which is being affected. There are a fewer people coming into the hands-on kind of work, which is required in the trucking industry. The shortage is also biting elsewhere, in engineering and maintenance, plus countless other more technical hands-on occupations.
The trucking industry is going to, not only, need to replace the people who are approaching retirement age now, but also for many more people to be involved in the industry. The freight task is not going to stop growing at a fast pace and, in order for the Australian economy to function correctly it needs a viable and lively road transport industry to keep its wheels turning.
The years since Covid have seen a shortage of equipment, which is needed to fulfil the freight task. The evidence for this is the sky-high prices operators have had to pay for secondhand gear to do the work and the extremely long waiting list for new trucks, trailers etc, which are only now beginning to reduce.
The push from the big corporates onto those performing tasks within the supply chain, in order to fulfil commitments to moving towards zero carbon are putting pressure on those in the transport industry.
At the same time, trucking operators are looking at how they are going to make the transition across to zero, but cannot be sure about the technology which will work best for them. There is a shortage of certainty about which technologies will be effective and economically viable in a future zero emission economy.
It is the lack of any certainty about the path the industry is going to be taking over the next 10 years which is also creating issues. Operators may need to employ all of the possible technologies, using small battery electric trucks here, large battery electric trucks elsewhere, but also needing a fuel cell electric vehicle on one particular task and also a hydrogen combustion engine on longer heavier routes. There is a distinct shortage of certainty about which choices will be the right ones for the industry, going forward.
With all this uncertainty about there is also going to be a shortage of people willing to jump into an industry and invest in it when the outcomes cannot be quantified, because of technical issues which may or may not occur down the track.
We are suffering from a shortage of new ideas and need to throw away a lot of the old thinking which has got the industry to where it is today, which will not be able to move it forward into the next era.
And how do we get new ideas in the industry? We get young smart people into the industry, we recruit the best and give them the task of taking this industry forward in a rational way into an uncertain future.
At the end of the day, it is the shortage of people which is going to hold our industry back and which should be the main priority for just about everybody involved with trucking.
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