He didn't count how often Rüdiger Konrad climbed the five steps to his driver's cab. It must have been often. For 37 years he has been driving for the Bork forwarding company in Langgöns-Niederkleen in Central Hesse near Gießen. On this gray December lunchtime alone, there are more than a dozen climbing trips. Konrad has just come from Dietzenbach near Frankfurt, where he has picked up a full trailer with goods from the Rewe warehouse. Part of it should go to the cold store on the huge Bork site. Konrad has to unload himself, get back in, drive up a little, get out again, close the rear doors, get back in and park the trailer on the Bork parking lot, get off again, unsaddle up, as the experts call it, get back on the road and the next trailer on the Get the Bork site that is ready for him.

Daniel Mohr

Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

  • Follow I follow

It goes back in the Frankfurt direction, this time to the Rewe warehouse in Neu-Isenburg.

With 3600 empty gray folding boxes in the trailer.

Konrad curses when the trailer doesn't lock into place on the first attempt.

He has to get on and off four to five times until everything is ready for the next trip.

Konrad currently makes two to three such trips a day.

It starts at 6 a.m., and if everything goes well, the working day ends at 4 or 5 p.m.

Otherwise it will just be longer in the evening.

There is no overtime, the longer working hours are just part of it.

"An eight-hour day is not possible, the vehicle shouldn't be standing around," says Konrad.

Sometimes he drives goods to Belgium, sometimes to Baden-Württemberg, but often to Frankfurt.

Konrad has been working these relatively regular day shifts for eight years.

Actually, he doesn't have to work anymore.

“I'm a pensioner,” says Konrad.

He is 65 years old.

But he continues to work.

On the one hand, so that he doesn't get bored.

“I'm alone, I don't have a dog, two grown children, and I can't clean up the basement every day.” On the other hand, because he needs the money.

“A whole corner is missing from the pension,” says Konrad.

Are English conditions threatened?

A stroke of luck for the freight forwarding industry, because people like Rüdiger Konrad are urgently needed. According to industry estimates, there is currently a shortage of 60,000 to 80,000 truck drivers in Germany. A third of the drivers are older than 55 years. 30,000 retire each year, but just half as many are new to the profession. English conditions threaten. The driver shortage there resulted in empty gas stations and supermarkets in the autumn.

“We could immediately hire 20 to 30 drivers,” says Kurt Metz, fleet manager at Bork, a 70-year-old family company. 300 towing vehicles are in operation, 550 trailers are in use, and around 400 drivers are employed, more than half of whom are Poles. The company currently has just two truck driver trainees. “It would have to be at least ten times that amount so that we could meet our needs,” says Metz.

Rüdiger Konrad helps with the training, often does driver training on Saturdays with the young drivers, but also with the newcomers from Poland, Romania or Greece. Konrad is a relaxed driver. His vehicle is registered for up to 40 tonnes, and he confidently steers it with a long trailer over the country road through Butzbach and its traffic roundabouts onto the autobahn to Frankfurt. “I don't have any stress,” he says. “I don't have to drive ten meters into the vehicle in front of me. For what reason? Then I'm not faster either. ”He drives roughly 83 km / h on the autobahn, which is where fuel consumption is lowest.

Konrad thinks a lot about the shortage of young talent in his branch.

“I definitely didn't see the job as a heavy burden,” he says.

"Others also go to assembly work during the week as a roofer or house painter."