Truck driver shortage eases, but could return
Industry leaders say New Zealand’s much-publicised truck driver shortage has abated during the economic downturn, including at Southland-based company HW Richardson Group.
However, the spokesman for a national transport association that represents 1200 companies says he expects the shortage will return.
The driver shortage in the past couple of years impacted on HW Richardson Group, one of the country’s largest privately-owned transport companies, as its different businesses struggled to fill seats.
The changed immigration settings had helped the company, and many others, in bringing in drivers from overseas. in HWRs case it brought in 30 Filipino drivers.
This week, Anthony Jones, chief executive of the company, said the pressure around the driver shortage had abated somewhat as business activity levels had dropped off.
“Now with the downturn we are seeing, it’s definitely a lot easier to get staff than what it was 12-18 months ago.
“You go back 18 months and the pedal was full on in every industry; construction, farming, right the way through. Our concrete trucks were busy, our bulk tankers, our aggregate trucks, roading construction and civil, it was full steam ahead, whereas the heat’s come out of that.”
HWR, “like every other business”, was now feeling the ups and the downs of the general economic deterioration, he said.
“It’s definitely tough out there, there’s no doubt about that.”
People were being more prudent in their spending and projects were taking longer to be approved, he said.
Dom Kalasih, interim chief executive of
Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand, a national industry association representing 1200 road freight transport companies, said the changed immigration settings in 2022 had made it easier for immigrant drivers to enter the country to work, at a time of critical driver shortages.
Transporting NZ reported a shortage of 3,449 truck drivers nationwide in 2022, while visa data showed 4289 truck drivers applied for the sped-up work visas between July 2022 and April 2024, he said.
This had helped to resolve the critical shortages. The demand for trucking activity, both domestically and globally, had since dropped, he said.
“At this time we are certainly not hearing from our members that they are screaming out for drivers.”
A challenge for the transport sector was that demand could be volatile, he said.
“My gut feel is those levels of volatility are increasing ... and we still believe in the longer term there will be a truck driver shortage.
“When you look at some of the projects in the pipeline, such as the construction of the roads of national significance, that will bring in significant demand.”
It was difficult for the sector to “ramp up and down” to meet changing demands, he said.