UNO Logística, the business organisation for logistics and transport operators, has released its forecasts for 2025 in Spain, which indicate that e-commerce will grow by 5.4% this year. Recruitment linked to logistics and transport will in addition increase by 2.8%.

The President of UNO, Francisco Aranda, emphasised that this upward trend “compels us to continue making important investments to accelerate our digitalisation and to continue boosting the competitiveness of the last mile by optimising routes, grouping deliveries, reducing kilometres and improving reverse logistics”.

Smart, sustainable mobility
The logistics industry represents 8% of Spanish Gross Domestic Product and employed 1,164,149 workers in 2024. The improvements proposed by Aranda are not only intended to make operations more efficient but, as he explained, “to continue moving towards smart, sustainable mobility, to continue helping to decongest cities and to achieve maximum control over the traceability of products”.

Following employment growth of 4.6% in the industry in 2024, Aranda is setting a target of 2.8% this year, stating that, “We will continue to be one of the largest employers and leading industries in our economy, but we will have to be very vigilant about endogenous risks arising from political and regulatory uncertainty, and new cost overruns on business activities”.

Generational change
To maintain job creation and operational improvement, the industry faces major challenges, and Aranda confirmed, “The urgent need to boost the training of professionals and attract young talent to ensure the generational replacement within our industry; to continue investing in infrastructure in order to consolidate intermodality and, especially, rail as a mode of transport; and to advance with modernising the rail system”.

In its review of the year 2024, the employers' organisation highlights that around 1.303 billion shipments were handled in e-commerce, which is 8.6% more than the previous year and a record high. Road goods transport also grew, with an increase of 7.82% in the fourth quarter alone compared to the same period in 2023. And all this when considering that over 95% of goods are transported by road in Spain.

^{Photo: UNO Logística}