The European road freight industry continues to suffer from a severe driver shortage crisis, with around 500,000 driver jobs currently vacant.

According to the International Road Transport Union's (IRU) annual driver shortage analysis, driver vacancies in Europe account for about 12% of all jobs, roughly the same as last year, largely due to sluggish economic activity.

The IRU study found that 70 per cent of European road freight operators surveyed experienced serious or very serious difficulties in filling positions, although this figure was down slightly from 71 per cent who experienced the same problem last year.

However, Natalia Corchado, strategic planning and operations specialist at the International Road Transport Union, said the situation could get worse next year.

"Few companies expect difficulties to diminish next year - an ageing workforce, economic growth in Europe expected to reach 1.5 per cent means more activity and we expect 12 per cent of vacancies to grow to 15 per cent," she said.

Mexico and Turkey, two key nearshore transport locations, fared even worse, with driver vacancy rates rising to 15% and 17%, respectively. In absolute terms, there is a shortage of about 100,00 drivers in Mexico and 93,000 in Turkey, although the situation in both countries has improved slightly from last year.

Ms Corchado says the industry has three levers to strengthen its workforce: recruit more female drivers; Recruiting younger drivers; Recruit drivers from other countries.

"About 47 percent of employees in European transport companies are women, but only 4 percent of truck drivers are women," she said. She added that about 7 percent of truck drivers worldwide are women.

"However, when we look at the levels of job satisfaction of the drivers surveyed, we find that women are more likely to recommend their career than men - and once they take the helm, they are generally more satisfied with their jobs than male drivers," she said.

The shortage of younger drivers, meanwhile, is expected to be exacerbated by an increase in the number of drivers over 55-29 per cent in the US, rising to 36 per cent in Europe and as high as 47 per cent in Australia.

Meanwhile, only 7 percent of truck drivers in the United States are under the age of 25, a figure that drops to 4 percent in Europe and 5 percent in Australia.

"This means that 36 per cent of European truck drivers are expected to retire in the next 10 years and half a million in the next five years, which will almost certainly widen the gap we have today," she added.

Currently, only 6% of truck drivers in Europe are non-European nationals, and while recruiting drivers from outside the EU could immediately address the shortage, "the situation is complicated by current work regulations" - and there are concerns about driving standards.

However, Patrick Philipp, director of Certification and Standards at IRU, said the Steer2EU project, sponsored by the European Transport Commission, is underway to bridge the legal gap between the EU and third countries such as Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

"We are not recruiting drivers in this way, we are recruiting professional drivers. It's not about poaching drivers from other countries to work in the EU, it's about social dumping, it's also about raising and establishing standards in those countries."

A Steer2EU seminar is planned to be held in Brussels to discuss the progress of the project.