With a little over three months left in 2023, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's administration is turning its attention to a looming challenge: a lack of truck drivers.

Kishida has said that he plans to draft a set of policies to deal with the so-called 2024 problem — recent buzzwords for an expected shortage of truck drivers once their overtime hours are capped in 2024.

“The government compiled a (basic) policy package in June over the issue, and we need to implement it quickly,” Kishida told reporters Thursday after he visited a truck company in Tokyo early in the morning.

“Therefore, we will hold a ministerial meeting next week and compile more detailed policies — a logistics reform package — that needs to be implemented urgently.”

The '2024 problem'

Truck drivers across Japan are facing an overtime cap that would limit them to 960 hours a year as part of the government’s work-style reforms. The change is scheduled to take place starting next April.

The potential negative impacts of the new rule have been dubbed the “2024 problem” — a series of predicted logistical issues such as potential disruption to delivery services and a decrease in delivery capacity, amid a simultaneous inability to attract young, new workers into the trucking industry.

Truck drivers in Japan traditionally work long hours for low pay. Labor ministry data from 2022 shows that the average annual working hours for a heavy truck driver were 2,568, which is 444 hours longer than the national average for all jobs. The average annual income was around 4% lower than the all-industry average, coming in at ¥4.77 million, the equivalent of roughly $36,000.

With the coming overtime cap, the transportation capacity of commercial trucks is predicted to face a reduction of around 14% by 2024, according to the trade ministry’s sustainable logistics study group. And the Nomura Research Institute estimates that truck drivers could transport 35% less cargo in 2030 compared to 2015.

Groups like the Japan Trucking Association (JTA) have warned that without adequate solutions, the cap could cause changes to services that have become convenient norms for consumers, like deliveries of fresh seafood, fruits and vegetables, or same- and next-day deliveries.

Countermeasures

On Thursday, Kishida pointed to the need to automate placing cargo in and out of trucks and warehouses, reduce the need for redelivering cargo and packages, and increase pay for truck drivers.

He also talked of the need to introduce self-driving vehicles and utilizing alternative options such as moving cargo by trains and ships.

Some companies have already taken on the task, like train operator JR East, which conducted trials of cargo transport via shinkansen earlier this year. Rail operations in Japan are currently geared toward passenger transportation, unlike North America, for instance, where rail is often synonymous with freight services.

The JTA, meanwhile, has also proposed implementing a plan to smooth out work operations such as by having trucks reserve specific time slots for loading and unloading cargo in order to reduce waiting times.

Logistics fees also need to be increased so that truck drivers can receive higher pay, which would attract more drivers, the JTA said. For consumers, the group is urging people to use delivery boxes at apartment complexes where drivers can leave packages for them to pick up at their own convenience, and order products online in bulk to reduce the number of deliveries.

The government also recently announced that it is considering adding a new category of work available under the specified skilled worker visa in order to address recruitment challenges in the transportation and logistics industries.

Amid a shortage of truck, bus and taxi drivers, and an aging of their existing labor forces, the hope is to attract foreign nationals to begin filling the need.