(Finance) – Finding concrete solutions to the shortage of drivers and workers which threatens the freight road transport and logistics sector. With this goal ANITA, the Confindustria Association which represents companies in the sector, presented Logitec 2024 at its stand at Transpotec the “Young Road Transport and Logistics” Observatory. The Association has highlighted a real emergency within the initiative thanks to the study by Unioncamere – Excelsior presented by Antonello Fontanili, director of Uniontrasporti, which highlighted how in the period between 2019 and 2023 there was a growth in the mismatch between job supply and demand of over 15 percentage points, from 15.1% to 30.6%. Last year, in fact, the figure of the driver ranked second in the ranking for the highest number of difficult-to-find hires, while 73% of national companies active in the segment planned hiring in the same period. A consolidated trend according to Unioncamere – Excelsior, which in the first half of 2024 highlights how hiring will be able to cover less than half of the real need of 65,430 jobs.
For this reason, ANITA promoted the creation of“Young Road Transport and Logistics” Observatory born with different objectives that aim to encourage access to the profession: knowing the professional expectations of the new generations; support gender equality, promoting inclusiveness and female empowerment; offer an informed direction to the workforce of tomorrow, creating a meeting point between the business system and students; raise national institutions’ awareness of the lack of drivers, to the benefit of the economic system and the community. The Observatory – explains ANITA in a note – intends to act in this regard 3 different levels: launching an empirical investigation into the perception of the profession among young people from the Higher Technical Institutes spread across the territory and adhering to the national education system; informing them about the potential of the sector which, beyond stereotypes, wants to place itself in an open and inclusive space to offer concrete employment opportunities without gender obstacles; stimulating the promotion of active employment policies which, in a structural manner, can guarantee the future of the sector. At the initiative, moderated by director of Men and Transport, Daniele Di Ubaldo and open from vice president of ANITA and contact person for the Training Area, Natale Mariellaparticipated Serafino Negrelli, full professor of Sociology of economic processes and work at the University of Milan Bicocca; Antonello Fontanili, director of Uniontrasporti; Roberto Di Marco, vice-president of the Road Transport Register And Orazio Maurizio Diamante, FIT-CISL national secretary.
“The Observatory wants to represent a watershed capable of reducing the phenomenon of staff shortages in the sector. In our role as privileged observer, – he explained Mariella – we want to put ourselves at the service of the freight transport industry, logistics and institutions to identify solutions, create synergies and suggest useful policies to undertake a path that can lead companies to attract young people in an informed, fair and inclusive environment, capable of welcoming them as a fundamental element for the sector”.
Negrelli proposed a focus on the misalignment between the world of work and the expectations of workers today. “With reference to the road haulage sector, the companies – he said Negrelli – they must reorient their policies to improve the quality of work to attract young people to the profession. They must therefore encourage the approach to the world of transport and logistics, through initiatives and activities capable of redesigning the perception that the sector expresses externally”.
“To allow young people to approach the business sector – he said Diamond – must rethink and strengthen their concept of welfare”.
Di Marco instead underlined how the Institution is working to rebuild the image of the driver of heavy vehicles through communication campaigns, such as ‘Together to drive the future’ launched in summer 2023. “Alongside the initiatives that aim to impact the perceived – he specified Marco’s – awareness-raising actions appear: among these, the call for access to scholarships of up to 2 thousand euros for obtaining CE and CQC licenses; the training campaign that offers theoretical and practical modules for safe and eco-sustainable driving of high-performance vehicles that are increasingly similar to spaceships. Furthermore, I would like to remember the commitment to create new safe parking areas, with funding of up to 13 million euros”.
“To promote inclusiveness and the presence of women – he concluded Mariella – it is necessary to encourage corporate culture by resorting to training projects that can increase equality and cooperation, leading to the recognition of gender diversity as an overall enrichment for the company. Promoting merit and skills is another tool that leads to reducing gender inequality. The Observatory that we have set up will be able to make a great contribution on the gender gap, since through research and monitoring activities on the condition of gender equality in the sector it will be able to direct companies to adopt good practices, it will be able to promote training, knowledge and culture of equal opportunities. For us, the Observatory will have to contribute to eliminating gender stereotypes in the road haulage and logistics sector, bringing out all the positivities that derive from female work also towards institutions”.