The director of the Serbia Transport Road Traffic Association, Goran Aleksić, said that Serbia lacks 20,000 professional drivers, i.e. 20 percent of the required number of professional bus drivers.
Aleksić, who is a also member of the Executive Board of the Union of Employers, said that those were the data collated by the Traffic Safety Agency, adding that Serbian transport companies have even lowered employer criteria in order to find workers.
“The average age (of drivers) is over 55 years old. The employment criteria are quite low, and this also leads to a drop in the quality of service and jeopardizes traffic safety,” he said.
Aleksić believes that the new legal solution on lowering the age limit for professional drivers is fully in line with the EU directive.
He added that Serbia has been conducting top-quality training for professional drivers for years. “I believe that young and educated people will be more desirable to employers in road transport, especially when dealing with the digitization and new technological solutions in transport,” Aleksić added.
He pointed out that the salary of professional drivers in Serbia is “quite high compared to other professions”.
Professional drivers have been leaving Serbia in droves because they get higher salaries and have better working conditions in European countries.
For this reason, for instance, the Belgrade Public Transport Company has employed thirty drivers from Sri Lanka.
(Biznis.rs, 18.08.2023)
https://biznis.rs/vesti/srbija/srbiji-nedostaje-20-000-profesionalnih-vozaca-autobusa/
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