Making the news today....

[Johnsond]

10 minutes ago, Big J said:

The driver shortage is starting to affect us now too. The main sawmill we supply in Wales is contracting it's operational radius for collecting timber to just Wales and the borders due to having 6 lorries parked up. Not good.

 

Inflation is about to explode in the UK I feel. With shortages of everything (materials and certain staff) and billions of excess currency in circulation, I can see 5% inflation happening within 12 months.

J the answer lies in training and investing in our own people and companies not existing for the bottom line only. The jenga comparison you mentioned briefly is a pretty simple way of getting across to people the problems we are gonna face in the future if we don’t change. 
That firm who has 6 lorries parked up !! offer to train some keen young lads and pay them a decent wage. Government help with tax perks for training etc of course should be in place but sadly whilst we got brexit we are still geared up to the idea of a huge pool of skilled labour  that someone else paid to train to pick from and drop as it suits. The long term strategic plan to make the best of the situation is yet to materialise unfortunately and quite frankly may  never. 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Johnsond

[scbk]

There's no driver shortage, only a wage shortage. £10 an hour, away all week, and you could spend half a day just sat waiting in a supermarket distribution centre bored out of your mind 

[trigger_andy]

Just now, scbk said:

There's no driver shortage, only a wage shortage. £10 an hour, away all week, and you could spend half a day just sat waiting in a supermarket distribution centre bored out of your mind 

When will these companies learn that people living in the UK need to be paid a wage that reflects the skills ,responsibility and as you mention time away from your family that come with the job they are doing? £10 an hour? Seriously? They might as well work in Tesco stocking shelves. 

 

I was gobsmacked when the Manager at my local Jewsons said he was on £80 a day. The discussion came about as I was in with a mate and his labourer was complaining he was hard done by being on £100 a day.

[Mark J]

1 hour ago, Johnsond said:

Listened to a article on R4 a few weeks ago regards this and whilst people will try to politicise it, without fail the drivers spoken to complained about poor rates of pay especially from a few well known operators and use of agencies by the supermarkets. The EU drivers are split into well paid professional drivers from Holland, France,Germany etc and others, the others are what the operators seem to be missing. This was the views  the UK drivers were giving. The answer rather than run to the EU to fill gaps is to invest and train our own people, all the companies moaning  no doubt miss the cheap Labour pool that the EU offered. It always pisses me off that companies want ready made trained people regardless of where ever  they come from yet won’t invest in training our own young, short term greed that long term benefits no one. Training and investment in the young right now  should be an absolute overriding priority including skills such as HGV driving. 
HGV driver shortage is nothing new hence reducing the age limit from21 to 18 a few years back. it’s just MSM dramatising something and encouraging those who want to beat the political drum. 

I agree it would be better to train up people here. They lowered age in 2009 so there's been plenty of time to invest if they wanted to.
I'm not sure what we're supposed to do in the interim though, 76,000 is a lot of drivers to train.
 

From last December: 

Please Wait... | Cloudflare

THELOADSTAR.COM

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Mark J

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

9 hours ago, Mark J said:

Does this seem credible: 

No. 
 

It’s an attempt to place the entire ‘blame’ for a long standing, multi faceted shortfall entirely upon the Brexit banner. 
 

It has no more credibility than a message on the side of a bus but there will be some that cling to it as a confirmation bias. 

[trigger_andy]

7 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

 but there will be some that cling to it as a confirmation bias. 

You know that term has been 'canceled' by those here that struggle to understand it, right?  

[trigger_andy]

5 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

I disagree, for the most part. 

 

The problem has always been there, but has been masked by having access to a European labour force. The problem is that we don't have the staff in the UK. Brexit has exposed this.

Sometimes its better to expose a fundamental flaw than to ignore it and continue to kick the can down the road. Brexit is akin to pulling the plaster off quickly. It was badly needed for a number of reasons and this is just another one to add to the list. Perhaps now the UK will be forced to train out youth and the continued fall into stagnation will be halted? 

[doobin]

If it hadn't been for the sudden influx of cheap European labour, lorry drivers wages would be much more likely to still reflect the responsibility they undertake.

 

Who'd have thought it? You suddenly allow in to live and work tens of thousands of people for whom £50 a day is a kings ramsome, enough to buy a house back home after working here for two years, driving a lorry like they do back home. Furthermore, you also allow European firms an exemption to do a few jobs in Britain whilst they are over here delivering, all the while whilst running under much more lax Polish lorry standards with belly tanks full of half price diesel purchased back home.

 

And you wonder why the **************** lorry drivers are paid so little? All you who blame Brexit for the current driver shortage are so blind you can't see the wood for the trees. The seeds of this shortage were sown by adopting freedom of movement. wihtout taking into account the vastly differing standards in countries who shoudl never have been thrust together under one banner ipn the first place. How ironic that Brexit should be the thing that causes a shortage again.

 

 

No temporary UK visas for EU lorry drivers, urges Unite | Workpermit.com

WORKPERMIT.COM

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Trade union, Unite, has urged the UK government not to issue temporary UK visas to EU lorry drivers. Full story, here.

 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

7 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

I disagree, for the most part. 

 

The problem has always been there, but has been masked by having access to a European labour force. The problem is that we don't have the staff in the UK. Brexit has exposed this.

UK is not short of ‘bodies’, it is short of bodies willing to work. 
 

Forget cheap EU labour, that’s gone - and good riddance. As you say, that just masked the problem and the problem is the economically inactive within the UK. 
 

A combination of making economic inactivity less ‘attractive’ and employment ‘necessary’ has the potential to set the record straight. 
 

Yes, there may be bumps along the way, and yes Remainers will doubtless continue to moan, but Brexit is the catalyst for starting on the right path rather than maintaining a self evidently damaging one. 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Shortage of drivers isn’t ‘new’ news and it isn’t Brexit news either. From 2015 in the Brexit loving Guardian:

 

Lorry driver shortage 'could put Christmas deliveries at risk' | Road transport | The Guardian

WWW.GOOGLE.CO.UK

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Shortfall of 45,000-50,000 drivers may also harm the UK’s economic recovery, according to the Road Haulage...

 

 

It’s just not new news and it’s just not Brexit news. Access to cheap Labour was a sticking plaster which allowed companies to ignore their own sustainability and resilience issues (in pursuit of profit) rather than properly train an organic workforce.