Major shortage of qualified tractor drivers

Subject: Major shortage of qualified tractor drivers

Specialist agricultural workers are increasingly difficult to find in Romania, and one of the fastest declining specialisms is tractor driving. Accordingly, farmers are reporting that, despite having the machinery costing hundreds of thousands of euro, they do not have anyone who can drive it.

According to farming association estimates in a report sent to the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture, there are at least 300–400 unfilled tractor driver positions on Romanian farms. The three main reasons for the shortage of tractor drivers are as follows: the oldest workers do not know how to operate the new computerised combines; the youngest workers who are most able to drive the modern combines ultimately choose other trades because farming is seasonal; agricultural colleges do not adequately train young people for this trade.

What are the Commission’s recommendations for combating this major shortage of qualified workers in agriculture?

Answer given by Mr Schmit on behalf of the European Commission

(7 March 2022)

The Commission strategy for combating shortages of qualified workers is set out in the 2020 European Skills Agenda (1). It is a plan to help individuals and businesses develop more and better skills by 2025.

Among them is the Pact for Skills (2), an engagement model for private and public actors in industrial ecosystems for the upskilling and reskilling of people of working age.

A large-scale skills partnership in agri-food has been launched on 18 February 2022 (3), including FoodDrinkEurope, Copa-Cogeca, an Erasmus+ skills project (4) and EIT-Food (5).

The Skills Agenda also supports the acquisition of digital skills. Attractive training programmes can help sectors that suffer from shortages of skilled labour to attract new workers — either young people who opt for careers in such sectors or people with transferable skills from other sectors.

In the Council Recommendation on vocational education and training (VET), Member States have agreed on principles to make VET systems more attractive and labour market relevant and are drafting national plans to this aim (6).

The Commission proposal on micro-credentials sets out a European approach for recognition of short courses, which could be used to train for in-demand skills, such as tractor driving.

The upcoming agri-food skills partnership is well aware of these issues, including the specific shortage of tractor drivers in several Member States. It will undertake to involve technology providers in the partnership, as necessary actors to help solving these issues.

⋅1∙ https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1223&langId=en

⋅2∙ https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1517&langId=en

⋅3∙ https://ec.europa.eu/growth/news/commission-supports-creation-partnership-skills-agri-food-ecosystem-2022-02-18_en

⋅4∙ https://www.erasmus-fields.eu/home/

⋅5∙ https://www.eitfood.eu/

⋅6∙ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32020H1202%2801%29