Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Labour-market, Transport

As Tschernjavski told, Hert-Transport is ready to hire 500 people from Estonia to drive its car carriers. Hert-Transport serves large car factories such as Renault, Ford, Peugeot and Citroen and car distribution centers, mainly in Europe and customs warehouses in Russia, in particular in Moscow.

"There is a lot of new work for companies that transport cars in recent years since many operators in Eastern Europe have gone out of business. At the same time there is high demand for new cars in Russia and this has also reduced capacity in Europe," said the businessman.

According to Tchernjavki, the company has idle trucks since there are no drivers. On the upside, there are no leasing costs and owns have the fleet. "We have managed to break through in this business, made the right choices and survived," he added.

Hert-Transport uses recruitment company M-Partner HR to find new drivers. "Right now I have work for 200 people," says Aivar Pehme, the founder of M-Partner, adding that the demand for a few years is 500 drivers. "Estonia is such a village that you simply cannot find so many people with the necessary qualifications," said Pehme, adding that at present most drivers are Latvians, Lithuanians, Russians and Ukrainians.

At present Hert-Transport has 80 employees. Estonia's largest road carriers are Parme Trans with about 150 employees and Linford that has 120 employees.

Hert-Transport ended last year with revenues of 150 million kroons, an increase of 20 percent from 2008. The company was founded in 1994 and last year spent 21 million kroons in purchasing new trucks.