Business Report writes that the importance of the road freight industry to SA’s economy is shown in that 86% of the freight transported annually in the country goes by road. However, the sector, as well as rail transport, are in trouble.
Economist Mike Schüssler reports that road freight has had 14 months of year-on-year declines. He says the sector has not just experienced a simple recession, but a long hard period with many firms going out of business and tight budgets overall. The strain being experienced by the road freight industry is evident from the number people employed in the bargaining unit, with a total of 3,987 employees retrenched in 2015 and 2,450 retrenched so far this year. Schüssler has further bad news for the road freight industry, stressing that price pressure would continue for some time, wages would not be able to increase above the rate of inflation and there would be massive consolidation in the industry.
- Read this report by Roy Cokayne in full at Business Report
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