Barcelona Port’s Training and Employment Working Group encourages training for road transport

New studies must help companies recruit people trained in the fields of driving and road transport management.

On the 29th of September, in the framework of the Working Group on ‘Training and Employment’ of the Port Authority of Barcelona, an information day has been held regarding the new courses that have launched during the current academic year 2022-23 at the Institute of Logistics of Barcelona and the Institute of the Virgin of the Mercè, as part of the Consortium of Education of Barcelona.

These new studies must help companies recruit people trained in the fields of driving and road transport management.

The road transport sector, through ATEC and SINTRAPORT – the sectoral associations in Barcelona – has identified a lack of specific professional profiles for the development of the economic activity of transport companies. The sector is suffering from the ageing of its workers, especially those engaged in driving, and has detected the lack of profiles as urgent as that of traffic bottlenecks.

In order to combat this situation and attract talent among transport companies in Barcelona, the Barcelona Education Consortium has launched a comprehensive strategy to respond to the situation:

  • The introduction of a new professional training cycle on driving vehicles, to train future lorry drivers.
  • The creation of an integral training center in logistics: the Barcelona Logistics Institute, to prepare courses based on transport management profiles.

It has been noted that throughout 2021 approximately 1000 new vocational training jobs were created from the 11,000 existing ones, and to which 20,000 applications were received. This is in addition to the high employability of students finishing the Dual Training programmes which showed a 70-80% recruitment rate in the first year of completion of the studies, in fields directly related to the studies completed.

In the light of these initiatives, the ‘Training and Employment’ Working Group of the Port of Barcelona Governing Council has organised a day to share the strategy and formative offer initiated by this academic course with the transport community, with the aim of creating synergies between companies and training centres through training projects, dual FP practices and demand-fitting talent recruitment.

During the event Eduard Rodés, the chairman of the Working Group and director of the Escola Europea – Intermodal Transport, expressed the needs of the sector. He was accompanied by Oscar González, the president of ATEC and Jorge Fernández, the president of SINTRAPORT,.

In response, Josep Ramon Domingo, from the Directorate of Post-Compulsory and Special Regime Education of the Barcelona Consortium, Alex Salinas, the deputy director of the Institute of the Virgin of the Mercè and Mercedes García, teacher and head of studies at the ILB have explained the strategy, content and ways of close collaboration between centers and companies.

Finally, Francesc Bonada, Head of Organization and Sustainability of the Port of Barcelona and Eduard Rodés, have closed the event by recalling the importance of collaboration with the business fabric to know the occupational needs and be able to adapt the training cycles to the current trends of the business community.