They witness
- Elisabeth JouannauxAcademic Director of the International Trade & Marketing Master’s degree available on a work-study program at the Kedge Bordeaux/Marseille management school
- Clement MoreuxHead of Recruitment at Padam Mobility
- Antoine Voyerconsultant in charge of the study* of the consulting firm Kyu
- Nicolas Guillaumedirector of Ile-de-France operations on technical and sales/marketing functions for the recruitment firm LHH (Lee Hecht Harrison) Recruitment Solutions
- Bachir Boucheritmanager at Fed Supply, the entity dedicated to supply chain, transport and logistics functions.
- Erwan Jean-Louissenior consultant enterprise technology & performance for the consulting firm Deloitte
Road transport: an unloved sector but better considered since the Covid
Like all sectors, road transport (freight and passengers) is struggling to recruit. Blame it on the shortage of candidates of course, but also on an image of the harsh and poorly paying truck or bus world, which it has begun to get rid of since the health crisis has highlighted its strategic usefulness for the country.
Elisabeth Jouannaux
“Road transport is not very attractive to my studentsnotes Elisabeth Jouannaux, academic director of the Master’s degree in international trade & marketing accessible on a work-study basis at the Kedge Bordeaux/Marseille management school. But they are gradually becoming aware of its importance following the Covid crises and the Russian-Ukrainian war. » There is indeed the possibility of carrying out impact missions around its ecological transitions (fight against solo driving, decarbonization of parcel deliveries and passenger transport, etc.) and digital in particular. Still, among the 36,000 companies in the sector, only a minority display this type of ambition. For candidates looking for an impactful job, sorting takes time.
Example: Padam Mobility recruits on impact jobs
The engineering company Padam mobility (subsidiary of Siemens Mobility) offers buses on demand via an application. The system works in the agglomerations of Lyon, Nantes, Lille or Orléans. It offers salaries of around 40,000-45,000 euros gross/year to young Bac +5 graduates for developer or sales positions. The promise ? It offers impact jobs since it acts for the decarbonization of public transport. And as this reason is not enough, she combines other advantages: a mutual paid at 70% by the employer, 25 days of paid vacation and 11 days of rest, an almost total telework with the obligation to come to the office. 2 days per… month and the possibility of having a coworking office when the number of employees reaches 3 in a given city.
Clement Moreux
Padam Mobility has “recruited 10 executives between May 2020 and April 2021 for 50 executives between May 2021 and June 2022, specifies Clément Moreux, the recruitment manager. Our executive searches are difficult, but the fact that we are a mission-driven company with a good recruitment process means that we suffer less than others to find back end developers, team leaders or sales people. These three professions constitute, in this order, the top 3 of our hires”.
Thousands of pending recruitment
According to the very recent barometer* of road transport recruitment tensions by the consultancy firm Kyu, the road transport sector employs some 625,000 people, 10% of whom are executives. This sector “is characterized by an intensification of recruitment tensions much faster than in other sectors of activity, specifies the study. The sector voltage index is 63% higher than the national average over the period 2018-2020, whereas they were similar in 2015”.
These tensions on recruitment are also explained by the sector’s growing labor needs, recorded by the Kyu study: managerial job offers in the road sector increased by 34% between the first half of 2021 and that of 2022.
“Employers are looking for transport charter managers, logistics managers, team leaders, human resources or QSE/HSE managers, explains Antoine Voyer, the consultant in charge of the study.
Nicolas Guillaume
On the recruitment firm side, a feeling of lack of candidates prevails: “land transport finds itself in a context of tension or even shortage of managers, confirms Nicolas Guillaume, director of Ile-de-France operations for technical and sales/marketing functions for the recruitment firm LHH (Lee Hecht Harrison) Recruitment Solutions. This structure, a division of Adecco, carries out approximately 20% of these missions in transport. Overall, this corresponds to a situation of full employment on the executive market with an unemployment rate of 3%.
For the Kyu study, 3 professions are part of the top 10 of the transport professions most under pressure in 2021, all sectors combined: this is the function
- production methods and quality control engineers,
- transport executives
- administrative, technical and financial frameworks.
Rising wages
This shortage leads to significant increases in remuneration. The 20th edition of the Expectra barometer of executive salaries illustrates this lack of candidates. With executive salaries increasing moderately by 2.2% in 2022 (2% in 2021 and 2.3% in 2020), “the transport and logistics sector benefits from the highest wage increase with a national average increase of 3.8%”says the study released on September 5, 2022.
Better still, “among all the remuneration analyzed, that of the planning technician recorded the highest increase at the national level at 6.8%, closely followed by the logistics manager (+ 5.9%) and the supplier (+ 5.7%)”.
Examples of remuneration in road transport
In this field of road transport:
- A developer young graduate is thus paid some 45,000 euros gross per year upon graduation.
- A commercial will emerge at 40,000 euros gross per year with a variable of around 5,000 to 10,000 euros. “At the start of my career, specifies a young Bac +5 graduate, who entered this world of work in 2019, my first salary was 42,000 euros gross per year. Three years later, in September 2022, having joined the board, I receive 54,000 euros per year. And if I want to change employer, I just have to respond to an offer that I receive every week”.
Bachir Boucherit
- “We primarily recruit charterersof the transport operators and road transit agents, adds Bachir Boucherit, manager at Fed Supply, the entity dedicated to supply chain, transport and logistics functions. Thus, I have just completed a mission as road transit agent for a land transport company. He will receive, with 3 years of experience, 30,000 euros gross per year but a e-commerce transport manager10 years of experience with management skills, landed a job at 50,000 euros gross per year.
In this sector, the ideal career could start with
- an operational post of the type carrier manager, transport assistant Where transport project manager. The young bac +5 in logistics and transport can claim a salary ranging between 28,000 and 35,000 euros gross per year.
- Then, he or she can land a 1st level managerial position such as that of operations manager Where charter or of transportation coordinator. His salary will then be around 38,000 to 45,000 euros gross per year.
- He will then progress to a position of deputy director or chief operating officer for a remuneration of between 50,000 and 100,000 euros depending on the size of the business unit.
Transferable skills
In this sector, experience in the world of mobility (car, bus, train, truck) is appreciated. “Because it’s a special market”. You also have to be curious and have a pioneering spirit. Because it is a world in the making with a possible development because of numerous technological advances such as the autonomous shuttle, smart mobility or the possibility of developing intermodality by mixing road, rail and maritime transport.
“In road transport, we have the whole future ahead of us, believes Erwan Jean-Louis, 28, senior consultant enterprise technology & performance for the consulting firm Deloitte. He supports, after a Master’s degree from the Marseille-Bordeaux business school Kedge in international trade & logistics carried out as an apprenticeship, transport companies in their digitization. And to illustrate:
We will have to transform all these companies, automate them, change the way they operate. In this, road transport is a breeding ground for executives who will have to find solutions to develop modal transport linking road to rail and sea. It is in this road transport that there are the most things to do even if this sector seems less attractive in the eyes of the younger generations.
Erwan Jean-Louis, Senior Consultant Deloitte