Random police checks at the Slovak-Hungarian border crossing Slovenské Nové Mesto - Sátoraljaújhely on Tuesday, November 28, 2023. (source: TASR)
The Slovak government has extended the possibility of granting national visas to nationals of selected third countries who will work as a bus driver or lorry driver in Slovakia.
“The road transport sector has been struggling with a labour shortage for a long time,” the government explains, citing the 12,000 drivers needed in Slovakia at the start of last year.
The administration also set the quotas for national visas for these jobs as follows: no more than 200 national visas (originally 150) for bus drivers, and a maximum of 2,000 national visas (originally 5,000) for lorry drivers in domestic and international transport in 2024.
The average age of a professional driver in Slovakia has exceeded 50 years, and drivers over 55 represent an alarming 45 percent of the total number of drivers, the government says. On the contrary, drivers under 25 make up only 4 percent of the total number of drivers.
“The generational change is thus taking place only very slowly and disproportionately,” the cabinet points out.
A survey by the International Road Transport Union (IRU) has shown that up to 9 percent of vacant jobs in Europe in 2023 were professional drivers, with a forecast to increase to 12 percent this year. In absolute terms, this represents a current shortage of about 600,000 drivers.
Slovak visas will be available to citizens of Belarus, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Georgia, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
