There is no driver shortage. The market got exactly what it paid for.

Edit: Strange how this article deliberately avoided framing it like businesses asking for even more of a handout instead of covering their own costs.

EU drivers leaving the UK also played a crucial part, but they left that part out.

It's kind of the same everywhere, right? So the older generations were able to drive lorries with their normal license. And that was split in separate licenses a while ago. Which totally made sense. And here in Germany, since the end of compulsory military service, nobody got their C-license. So we have fewer people who are even allowed to drive a truck. And then you have deteriorating working conditions for truck drivers making this one a really bad job. You really do not want to pay several thousand Euros for a C-license just for having to spend your weekends on a dirty Autobahn stop. Add the propaganda about self driving trucks replacing every driver in the next years and of course nobody wants to do this job.

The requirements should always be high since it's a lot of responsibility! The cost of learning, getting licensed should be as low as possible and salary must reflect demand

Probably electrification of this sector should also be priority, automatic transmission would help tackle the learning curve for drivers

You only need 2 to 5% the number of train drivers to haul the same amount of cargo.