Truckers: 1,800 euros net and two trucks sitting idle in Pontevedra
Ramón Fariña, owner of Frutas Moncho, pays 1,800 euros net and has two trucks idle. The full truck licence costs around 4,500 euros.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
1,800 euros net and two trucks idle: haulage won't get moving
Ramón Fariña has seven trucks on the road and two idle. He isn't short of cargo. He's short of hands. The owner of Frutas Moncho, a Pontevedra-based company that distributes fruit between Madrid, the ports of Vigo and Marín and shops in Galicia, told La Voz de Galicia on 16 October 2021: “Drivers can't be found; I have two trucks sitting idle.” He offers around 1,800 euros net a month, with per diem separate, and he himself is still glued to the wheel. The headline reads like a classic employers' complaint. The interesting question is the other one: why won't anyone take the truck?
Why truck drivers are scarce even though there is work
Fariña himself points to two reasons. Getting the qualification to drive a heavy vehicle costs a lot of money, and then companies demand experience nobody has. “It's very hard for you to put it in the hands of someone with no experience, because it scares you a lot,” he admits about handing a truck to a rookie. Caught between those two walls, the applicant pays, passes and still finds no way in.
The third leg is the working day. The businessman puts the maximum they drive at 45 hours of driving for every five days, and acknowledges the sacrifice: some weekends they sleep away from home, and during the pandemic there were truckers on the road “with nowhere open to eat.”
Add to that the wear and tear described by those who have lived the job from the inside: waits, loading and unloading that stretch the week, unpaid paperwork and the truck watched over at night in a service area. A heavy vehicle isn't just driven; it's lived in.
How much it costs to get a truck licence and the CAP
Completing the qualification, passing everything first time, costs upward of four thousand euros. The informal breakdown circulating among professionals:
Total: around 4,500 euros before earning a single euro from it. And the training doesn't end there: according to the same calculation, the certificate later requires refresher hours. The final tally, including renewals and courses, leaves the entry barrier even higher than the report suggests.
How much do you really earn driving a truck?
1,800 euros net sounds decent until you put it in context. Some calculate that this figure is equivalent to around 2,700 euros in Madrid or Barcelona, with three-bedroom rents at 500 euros in Galician cities. And some respond that the problem isn't the net pay but the fine print: that a good part of that 1,800 includes portions that don't count toward social security, that the real week looks more like 60 hours than 45, and that parking or a shower can end up coming out of the driver's own pocket.
The comparison that sets any conversation alight is with the train: a train driver, it is argued, earns around 3,300 euros for a much shorter working day. The figure is disputed —you have to count years on the waiting list and as an assistant before getting there— but it measures the problem well: with equal responsibility for lives and cargo, the road always loses the tug-of-war.
Segarro prepares 35,000 drivers as the shortage goes global
The market doesn't wait. According to published reports, some 35,000 Segarro drivers are preparing to fill truck driver and passenger bus jobs, with public aid of 3,000 euros per applicant. Meanwhile, the problem stops being local: in October 2021, with US West Coast ports clogged, the supply shortage was already being described as a phenomenon that transcends borders.
The dilemma allows both readings, and neither is comfortable. If supply and demand are the only compass, and no one accepts 1,800 euros, the way out is to raise the offer or leave the trucks idle. Another view holds that the root is structural —extremely expensive training, harsh conditions, experience impossible to start— and that for years the sector has plugged the hole with workers from abroad while locals were abandoning the wheel. And a third, more uncomfortable, blames the problem on work no longer being worth it compared with other alternatives.
From the trade's side, the response is that the diagnosis smells like an excuse and that the solution means paying for licences, training and accepting that there are jobs the market won't fix on its own.
How much does that pay have to rise, or how many barriers have to fall, before someone gets back into a truck that is still sitting idle?
Ramón Fariña has seven trucks on the road and two idle. He isn't short of cargo. He's short of hands. The owner of Frutas Moncho, a Pontevedra-based company that distributes fruit between Madrid, the ports of Vigo and Marín and shops in Galicia, told La Voz de Galicia on 16 October 2021: “Drivers can't be found; I have two trucks sitting idle.” He offers around 1,800 euros net a month, with per diem separate, and he himself is still glued to the wheel. The headline reads like a classic employers' complaint. The interesting question is the other one: why won't anyone take the truck?
Why truck drivers are scarce even though there is work
Fariña himself points to two reasons. Getting the qualification to drive a heavy vehicle costs a lot of money, and then companies demand experience nobody has. “It's very hard for you to put it in the hands of someone with no experience, because it scares you a lot,” he admits about handing a truck to a rookie. Caught between those two walls, the applicant pays, passes and still finds no way in.
The third leg is the working day. The businessman puts the maximum they drive at 45 hours of driving for every five days, and acknowledges the sacrifice: some weekends they sleep away from home, and during the pandemic there were truckers on the road “with nowhere open to eat.”
Add to that the wear and tear described by those who have lived the job from the inside: waits, loading and unloading that stretch the week, unpaid paperwork and the truck watched over at night in a service area. A heavy vehicle isn't just driven; it's lived in.
How much it costs to get a truck licence and the CAP
Completing the qualification, passing everything first time, costs upward of four thousand euros. The informal breakdown circulating among professionals:
- Category B licence: 1,000 euros
- Category C licence (truck): 1,500 euros
- Category C+E licence (with trailer): 1,000 euros
- CAP (Certificate of Professional Competence): 1,000 euros
Total: around 4,500 euros before earning a single euro from it. And the training doesn't end there: according to the same calculation, the certificate later requires refresher hours. The final tally, including renewals and courses, leaves the entry barrier even higher than the report suggests.
How much do you really earn driving a truck?
1,800 euros net sounds decent until you put it in context. Some calculate that this figure is equivalent to around 2,700 euros in Madrid or Barcelona, with three-bedroom rents at 500 euros in Galician cities. And some respond that the problem isn't the net pay but the fine print: that a good part of that 1,800 includes portions that don't count toward social security, that the real week looks more like 60 hours than 45, and that parking or a shower can end up coming out of the driver's own pocket.
The comparison that sets any conversation alight is with the train: a train driver, it is argued, earns around 3,300 euros for a much shorter working day. The figure is disputed —you have to count years on the waiting list and as an assistant before getting there— but it measures the problem well: with equal responsibility for lives and cargo, the road always loses the tug-of-war.
Segarro prepares 35,000 drivers as the shortage goes global
The market doesn't wait. According to published reports, some 35,000 Segarro drivers are preparing to fill truck driver and passenger bus jobs, with public aid of 3,000 euros per applicant. Meanwhile, the problem stops being local: in October 2021, with US West Coast ports clogged, the supply shortage was already being described as a phenomenon that transcends borders.
The dilemma allows both readings, and neither is comfortable. If supply and demand are the only compass, and no one accepts 1,800 euros, the way out is to raise the offer or leave the trucks idle. Another view holds that the root is structural —extremely expensive training, harsh conditions, experience impossible to start— and that for years the sector has plugged the hole with workers from abroad while locals were abandoning the wheel. And a third, more uncomfortable, blames the problem on work no longer being worth it compared with other alternatives.
From the trade's side, the response is that the diagnosis smells like an excuse and that the solution means paying for licences, training and accepting that there are jobs the market won't fix on its own.
How much does that pay have to rise, or how many barriers have to fall, before someone gets back into a truck that is still sitting idle?
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (347 replies).
More summaries
-
La Razón reports 1,400 teacher absences in Galicia
La Razón reports 1,400 teacher absences in Galicia during two weeks of September, reopening the debate on absenteeism and its political use.
-
€1,100 Net Monthly: The Real Reason for Spain's Low Activity Rate
Spain's activity rate is often cited as proof of laziness, but the actual calculation of working for €1,100 net per month tells a different story.
-
Euthanasia in Old Age: Autonomy vs. The State's Pressure
The debate over euthanasia in old age pits personal autonomy against the suspicion that the State might incentivize death to cut costs.
-
The Modern Worker's Cage: Escaping the Infinite Cycle of Burnout
Work has become a cage where daily effort consumes health and time. Discover why we push ourselves so hard and how to break the cycle.
-
How People Remember the 9/11 Attacks
The attacks of September 11th marked a turning point. Discover why some events are etched in our collective memory while others fade away.
-
Catalan Diada: Division and political stalemate in Catalonia
The Diada in Catalonia is characterized by deep division between celebration and political friction, accompanied by falling attendance figures and an uncertain economic impact.