“It’s gradually becoming less and less fun,” says trucker Udo, who has been in the industry for ages. He drives his main route, once from Eichenzell near Fulda to Italy and back, year after year. It’s a tough job, lots of stress, lots of traffic, little appreciation. And almost always he is alone. “The work has nothing to do with trucker romance.” Udo’s boss is also thinking about how he can replace his long-serving driver when he is about to retire. A few others in the forwarding company are also about to retire, but there are hardly any new recruits to be found.
“Without drivers from abroad, nothing would work in Germany anymore,” Angela Papenburg is convinced of that. The entrepreneur represents one of the largest logistics companies in Germany. In its need, the “Papenburg Group” is now looking for drivers in Uzbekistan. Half of their 200 trainees come from the Central Asian country. But only a few of them can imagine staying away from their homeland in the long term. The family is missing, homesickness is often great. A problem for the freight forwarders.
But there are also many black sheep in the industry. Forwarding companies that pay their drivers badly and do not pay social insurance. Trickery and loopholes in the law make this possible. At a motorway service station near Darmstadt in mid-March 2023, it was too much for some drivers from Uzbekistan and Georgia. They go on strike, don’t move the trucks, and even defend themselves against violent attacks. Their wages – well below the minimum wage, they report. It takes weeks for them to fight for outstanding salary payments. A success in an industry where the law is often perverted.
The large food chain REWE wants to gradually make itself independent of the uncertain logistics market. In the distribution center for north-east Germany in Oranienburg, the operations manager recently wants to set up his own fleet. At 3,600 euros a month, he offers an above-average monthly salary, staff discounts in the supermarket and: no long trips. The drivers are at home in the evenings, which is attractive. Germans in particular apply there. But they are then missing for long-distance traffic.
The “ZDF.reportage” on the way to truckers who no longer want to do their job in the driver’s cab the way they used to. And to customers who are only slowly realizing how important the forwarding industry is to them.