The development of personnel costs for transportation and warehousing shows a
significant increase across nearly the whole of the EU. Apart from Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria, which had an extremely low output level in 2006 and a very strong increase of up to 80% regarding personnel costs, almost all other countries registered a distinct growth. Thus, due to the low demand for logistics services, labour costs remained almost constant in Ireland and Portugal, whereas in Greece, labour costs declined. Comparatively small are also the increases in Germany, where the local labour market reform led to an almost stagnating wage development despite growing market demand.
Compared to the rest of each country’s economy, labour costs in the logistics sector showed, in general, a nearly similar or slightly smaller increase. Outliers can be found in Bulgaria, Malta, Poland and Finland, where the increase in personnel costs for transportation and storage is about 10% lower than that of the overall average. The few countries with declining labour costs during the last few years, like Portugal and Greece, managed to keep loans and wages in logistics more stable than in other sectors.
Considering fuel costs, it is hard to gain comprehensive data for the different aspects of this cost category. While diesel prices are surveyed on a very detailed and regular level in all Member States, there is no such data source for other fuels like bio fuels, heavy oils or kerosene. Even for diesel, there are only average pump prices for end customers available, although transport companies often get cheaper prices because of large contingents and price floaters. There is no public accessible source for transport-specific diesel prices over time on a national level. With this data background and the inherent price connection of all oil derivative fuels, diesel pump prices are the best available indicator for fuel cost development in the logistics sector. Bio fuels, which are a theoretical alternative to diesel fuels, are of minor importance. According to the International Energy Agency, the share of biofuels in energy demand for road transport was 3% in 2011 and will only grow to about 8% by 2035 (28).