How much does a truck driver earn: salaries that reach 2,000 euros but depend on costs

This week in Spain a carrier strike is being suffered in many cities. The workers of the sector are summoned by the Platform for the Defense of the Merchandise Transport Sector to support, from this midnight, an indefinite strike before the “Very serious situation in the sector and inadmissible working conditions”.

Among their claims, is to prohibit the contracting of road freight transport services below operating costs in a framework in which the increase in fuel prices has raised their costs by up to 50%.

To them is added a situation inherited for years and that grew in the pandemicframed by the scarcity of young people who want to enter the sector, especially as truckers and truckers, and their working conditions during confinement, when the closure of other services made their task much more difficult as they did not have a restaurant or open break.

Salaries ranging from 1,800 to 4,000 if they work outside of Spain

Although, as in many sectors, salaries are highly variable, a recent Infojobs report shows an average of salaries and also that they fell until they rose again due to the current shortage.

The salary of a trucker depends on many factors, but a main division must be to differentiate between those who work as employees for a transport company, and therefore provide their services as drivers, and those who are self-employed truckers, sometimes with owned truck and other times again driving a fleet.

For the first case, that of salaried truck drivers, their average salary in Spain can go from 1,400 to 1,500 euros per monthas explained by specialized portals such as Foro Transporte.

However, that sum already varies depending on whether the trucker is self-employed. There the data moves between about 2,000 euros per long routewhere the trucker must pass on his expenses, such as allowances, gasoline or vehicle maintenance, in these two cases if he does not drive a fleet. Of course, these incomes drop radically when there are large increases in costs, as is happening now.

Regarding the specific problem of the lack of truck drivers in Spain, the data from the InfoJobs Annual Report 2020 indicate that, in 2019, the average salary offered on the platform in Purchasing, Logistics and Warehouse was 20,165 euros; while, in 2020, however, it was 16,431 euros (-18.5%).

It was the third category that fell the most in this regard during the past year. This decrease is mainly explained by the effects of the Covid-19 crisis within this category, which translated into a greater hiring of profiles with lower salary ranges within the sector, more associated with the handling of products and not so much with their transport.

In this sense, in the offers published in the market it is observed that the salaries that the companies offer to truck and trailer drivers oscillate mostly between 16,000 and 21,000 euros, although depending on the length of the route, the differences tend to be greater and salaries are reached around 30,000 euros.

Currently, at InfoJobs, the average salary range for a truck driver is 19,500 euros in Madrid, and 22,500 euros in Barcelona. The rise in fuel prices due to the energy crisis is also directly related to this salary situation.

Other countries

To this is added the salary increase that the current shortage has brought, along with the competition between states for these professionals. Precisely in Germany, for example, truckers are sought through the network EURES with salaries that can reach 4,000 euros per month.