Indians to drive Hungarian trucks? Hungarian Waberer’s sets new trend

Waberer’s International, the leading Hungarian transport specialist, is to employ 80 drivers and two dispatchers from India to ease the labour shortage in the sector. The new colleagues will start in April, and from September they will work alone. Employing professionals from India is not rare in Europe in the transport sector. And they do not take away jobs from Hungarians. There are tens of thousands who could work as truck drivers in Hungary, but they do not want to. Therefore, demand for drivers from third countries like Serbia and Ukraine is rising.

Challenging profession

According to portfolio.hu, Waberer’s International starts testing the Indian applicants for the 82 open positions. The truck driver profession is ageing, leaving the job is frequent, while the demand is rising. The Hungarian economy news outlet says the increase in the sector is two-digit every year.

That vacuum cannot be solved with higher salaries – Zsolt Barna, CEO of the Hungarian Waberer’s, said. He added that the work was not easy. True, driving is easier than before, thanks to the many gadgets. However,

the job is stressful, parking is difficult everywhere in Europe, and journeys sometimes take very long.

Thus, divers rarely see their families.

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Indian truck drivers are competent

The company said they still counted on Hungarian drivers and people from the Central, Eastern European regions. However, it has become hard to find Ukrainian, Serbian, Romanian drivers recently. Companies compete for Ukrainian drivers despite the ongoing war. 

Since labour shortage baulks the company’s expansion, they resorted to employ Indian drivers.

Polish and Lithuanian transport companies also like to work with Indian drivers since they are well-prepared and hardworking. Furthermore, in India, working abroad has a long tradition. Thus, it is easy to recruit people with foreign driving experience. Currently, these people are the target group of the Hungarian transport giant.

The only things Indian drivers need to learn are the rules in Hungary plus they have to get some experience regarding the European driving style. The new colleagues will arrive in May, and the company organises internal training for them. Moreover,

they will have to pass several aptitude tests to find out whether they are eligible for the job or not.

Waberer’s provides all their Indian employees with a professional interpreter for the tests.

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Trucks cannot stop

Portfolio.hu argues that low wages are not the number one reason for the labour shortage in the transport sector. Its main reason is the high demand and the low supply of professional drivers. Logistics companies in East Hungary have been working with Ukrainian drivers for a long time. They disappeared from the market because of the Russian invasion, leaving many unfilled positions behind – Tivadar Árvay, communications manager of a trade union, said.

Therefore, locals should expect to see more drivers from exotic countries like India from now on.

Mr Árvay added that they did not take the jobs away from Hungarians. There are tens of thousands of Hungarian drivers who do not work in their profession. To make matters worse, 40 pc of the active Hungarian drivers are above 50, 10-12 pc is even above 60. If they leave, it will cause an even more severe labour shortage.

If their jobs remain vacant, there will be significant problems in the supply chains. Therefore, the state should help more to employ third-country citizens – Árvay argued.

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Source: portfolio.hu