THE WEEK 80,000 extra hgv drivers needed for 8-hr
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dayTRAINING BOARD WARNS GOVT ON LACK OF MANPOWER PLANNING
• The professional road haulage industry will require a futiher 20,000 hgv drivers by the mid-Seventies. And, if the UK enters the Common Market, the reduction to an eight-hour driving day in line with EEC regulations from January 1976 will have the effect of increasing this requirement by a further 20,000 hgv drivers.
These trends are indicated in the RTITB's third report in its series of detailed manpower statistics of the road transport industry entitled "Manpower in the '70s; A Manpower Plan for Road Transport". The 150-page report published last week goes further than its predecessors by seeking to relate the current manpower and training situation to the needs of the industry during the Seventies in addition to bringing the previously published statistics up to date.
In addition to the substantial increases in hgv driver requirements for the road haulage industry the report also indicates, using similar methods of calculation, that the own-account sector will require some 40 /50,000 more hgv drivers from 1976.
The passenger transport industry on the other hand is contracting to the extent of a 26 per cent reduction in conductors and eight per cent in drivers since 1964. These reducing trends are likely to continue, according to the report, resulting M a total manpower requirement of below 200,000 by the end of the Seventies. This compares with a 1953 figure of 298,000 employed in this sector of the industry.
A substantial increase in manpower is also forecast for the motor vehicle distribution and repair sector, from the present level of 363,000 employed to about 450,000 in 1980. But this increase is not so great as that experienced between 1953 and 1966 when employment increased by two-thirds.
The RTITB suggests that the report provides the data base for manpower planning proposed in the alternative plan it submitted to the Secretary of State for Employment in response to the Government's "Training for the Future" proposals (CM April 14). In the submission the board laid great stress on the crucial role of the Training Board in manpower planning and believed that authors of the Government report were unduly optimistic in suggesting that such manpower information would be available from Department of employment sources.
Copies of the RTITB publication are available from the Board at Capitol House Empire Way, Wembley, Middlesex, free to in scope companies and £2.50 otherwise.