More jobs for the boys
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• Job prospects in road transport look like picking up over the next three months, but overall work opportunities in haulage are still down on last year, according to the latest survey of employers in the industry carried out by contract driving company Overdrive.
Some 32% of the employers in road transport who were questioned by Overdrive plan to increase their workforce. This compares to only 17% in the previous quarter (CM 9-15 July) and 33% in the same period last year.
Job cuts are now being forecast by just 8% of employers — a marked drop on the previous quarter when 15% expected to make cuts. This is still up on the same period in 1986, when cuts were forecast by only 3% of employers.
Overdrive claims that the prospects for road haulage are reflected throughout the services sector, where the outlook is "generally very good". More than 39% of employers in the service sector plan to increase their workforce in the fourth quarter, up 6% over the previous quarter, and keeping pace with the same period a year ago.
The general trend, says Overdrive, is more clearly seen in the balance between the number of employers in creasing and those reducing their workforces. In road haulage this balance stands at +24, indicating that more operators are increasing their workforce than are cutting back. This is a major increase on the last quarter (+2), but down on 12 months ago (+30).
Job prospects throughout the country as a whole still seem to be better than for road haulage alone. In the distribution sector 31% of employers expect staffing levels to rise, compared to 24% in the previous quarter, while the proportion expecting to cut jobs remains steady at 9%.