DHL Freight launches Europe-wide driver recruitment initiative
DHL Freight, one of Europe’s leading providers of road transport services, is launching a driver recruitment initiative to counter the shortage of drivers in the logistics sector. To this end, the company is launching a pilot project at five locations that provide long-term career prospects, modified job profiles offering more varied work, and ultimately make it easier to absorb peaks at busy times. As part of the initiative, approx. 30 new jobs were initially created at the German DHL Freight branches in Maintal, Malsfeld, Koblenz, Sehlem and Erfurt in the spring of 2018. The new employees take on driving duties to complement existing transport capacities and, if necessary, also take on other tasks at the branches. Particularly during the peak season, they will be out on the road covering the first-mile and last-mile legs of deliveries for their particular branches. If the concept proves successful, DHL Freight would like to create up to 500 new jobs in Europe.
Uwe Brinks, CEO DHL Freight, explains, “Our industry is currently being driven by an ever-increasing demand for transport, not least because of the continued strong growth in e-commerce. While we have sufficient loading capacity, we are noticing an increasingly urgent shortage of drivers. We have now adopted a far-sighted approach to addressing this problem with our driver recruitment initiative, which is aimed at ensuring that we can continue to provide our customers with the certainty and service they have come to expect from us.”
As part of the initiative, new trucks with a load capacity of 12t will also be ordered, in order to provide drivers with state-of-the-art equipment and ensure sufficient transport capacity even in peak season.
CEO Uwe Brinks clarifies, “At peak times, such as before Christmas, we record particularly high volumes of items. The aim of the initiative is to expand our human resources and physical capacity in order to efficiently absorb these volume increases.”
In addition to well-known safety technology, the new vehicles will be equipped with a turning assistant. As part of the GoGreen environmental program, solar mats developed by the Group’s own start-up TRAILAR will also be fitted to the roofs of the vehicles. They will power a range of on-board systems such as liftgates, thus helping to reduce fuel consumption by up to 5%. In the medium term, Deutsche Post DHL Group aims to improve CO2 efficiency by 50% by 2025, as compared to 2007. The aim is to reduce emissions of local air pollutants by making 70% of deliveries using clean delivery and pick-up concepts.
The initiative provides for a rotating deployment, whereby the new employees will not be continuously deployed as drivers. During peak periods, they will absorb capacity bottlenecks on the roads. During quieter periods, they will be employed in the transhipment warehouse. New drivers will be remunerated on the basis of current collective agreements.