Egypt’s logistics sector is bracing for robust growth, with truck sales volumes surging 108% y-o-y in 2025. The figure indicates that the private sector is more eager than ever to capitalize on an improving macroeconomic climate and upgrade fleets that had stagnated during the post-pandemic years.

However, behind this boom in truck sales lies a critical labor market gap that needs to be addressed. While companies are buying trucks at record rates, the industry is facing a severe shortage of skilled, professional drivers. As the larger economy pivots toward export-led growth, the trucking sector faces a labor-induced bottleneck.

We sat down with industry insiders to understand the state of the country’s trucking sector, the implications of this mismatch between growth and labor supply for the industry, and what can be done about it.

Heavy trucking is the most impacted segment

The driver shortage is most pronounced in the heavy-trucking segment, which does the heavy lifting in moving our goods. To qualify to drive a heavy truck or a trailer, a professional driver must hold a third-class license for three years, then a second-class license for three years before securing a first-class license. “That’s six years before you can drive a heavy truck — or what I call a progression barrier,” Managing Director at Reliance Operations and Management Services (Roms), Omar Ragheb, told EnterpriseAM.

About the company: Roms, a subsidiary of the conglomerate Reliance Egypt, operates a fleet of 330 vehicles and provides fleet management and maintenance services to the wider industry.

And that shortage is not merely about headcount — it is a “skills and incentives mismatch,” the founder of the upcoming logistics asset fractional ownership platform FRCTN Karim Othman told EnterpriseAM. For example, there is a big wave of skilled Egyptian drivers migrating to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, drawn by massive infrastructure projects, higher pay, and superior and more predictable working conditions, both Othman and Ragheb told us.

In numbers: Roms estimates that the market has a gap of some 8k truck missions a day — essentially 8k loads a day that cannot be moved efficiently due to a lack of available assets or drivers. “You need at least to double the workforce in the industry because you need about two to three drivers for every truck to keep them moving,” Ragheb told us.

Hiring has also become very difficult for operators. Even established companies report a hiring success rate of only 40% at best, Othman told us.

The sector’s informality also complicates efforts to improve working conditions for drivers. About 95% of heavy trucks in the market are owned by individuals or family businesses, with only 5% owned by companies, Othman told us. On average, an individual or a family owns three trucks, “which creates zero economies of scale in maintenance, financing, social and health ins., and training, and leads to high downtime and volatile pricing,” he added.

Why does this matter?

Without drivers, trucks sit idle, and goods arrive late. “Idle time is a key factor in whether a company fails or succeeds because the goal is to maximize throughput. Transport is like a production line; the more throughput you achieve, the more revenue you generate,” Ragheb said.

Besides the common market imperative, the shortage has safety repercussions — it directly causes driver fatigue, Othman told us. With high demand and few drivers, operators often push for 18-hour workdays or 26-day work months. The lack of a new generation of drivers means the current workforce is aging, and the pressure to “over-drive” contributes to road accidents, he added.

What can be done?

One immediate fix is to reform the country’s licensing system. A proposed alternative is to decouple licensing from time served and base it on competency. “The law needs to be revisited to cut the required time to secure a heavy-trucking driver’s license from six to two years,” Ragheb said. To ensure competency, the government could accredit specific training institutions to test and certify drivers. Together, these two changes could immediately inject new, younger blood into the workforce, he added.

It’s not just that — to stop the drain to the Gulf and attract local talent, the profession must be formalized. This includes establishing minimum wage standards, mandating social and health ins., and enforcing maximum working hours to prevent fatigue, Othman and Ragheb told us. Currently, the market operates largely informally, with drivers lacking contracts or safety nets, meaning an injury or accident results in an immediate loss of income. Formalization would create a less volatile career path that is currently missing from the industry.

But how can this be done? Ragheb’s pitch is to introduce a unified industry association. This association can advocate for drivers and the sector by setting up “industry-wide standards for wages, hours, and training” and advancing professional development services for the drivers, he told us.

Technology can also help: While Egypt is far from ready to embrace autonomous trucking, integrating tech solutions can allow operators to achieve efficiencies that can translate into better working conditions for drivers. Policy options include mandating the installation of telematics and GPS tracking for vehicle licensing. This would enable better monitoring of driver behavior (fatigue tracking), fuel management, and route optimization, Othman said.

Tags: