Christmas Driver Shortage

thesun.co.uk/news/5098876/c … -truckers/

It’s that time of year again when suppliers are panicking their logistic requirements aren’t going to be met, a failure by the haulage industry.
52000 driver short in the industry, and the reason :-

Green said: “Nearly half of lorry drivers are over 50 years old, so this ‘on the road’ generation is not far away from turning off the engine for good.
“Young people don’t want to work as drivers anymore. For them, the job no longer smells of freedom.
Instead they are faced with expensive training, high insurance costs and problems such as lack of proper toilets .
“This all puts them off the job and we could be the ones that have to pay for this at Christmas

I’m not sure ‘toilets’ are an issue that crops up in an interview for any job, could they be a little more realistic with things like job security , poor level of pay, poor man management by recruitment agencies and clients, lack of professional qualifications and recognition, having to adhere to rules and regulations.
I don’t blame young people for not wanting to come into the industry, it’s not what it was was.

A transport manager for a large ish european spediteur with a base in england told me last week that romania has also ran out of drivers.

And he employs them buy the bus load. European wide problem it seems.

‘lack of proper toilets’,might concern me if i was a female truck driver…but if i was a young lad looking at becoming a ‘trucker’,my main concern would be working a 15 hour shift,9 hours off…then back behind the wheel again for another long shift.

carryfast-yeti:
‘lack of proper toilets’,might concern me if i was a female truck driver…but if i was a young lad looking at becoming a ‘trucker’,my main concern would be working a 15 hour shift,9 hours off…then back behind the wheel again for another long shift.

Tbh, 15hr days wasnt something that bothered me at all when i was younger, times and attitudes have changed somewhat since then though.

Same old same old every year at this time by the national rags.

Although I can see why the industry is dying on its arse. Kids don’t want to put up with what we, the older generation put up with. What they want is a 9-5 job that pays nearly as much, a social life and also a decent quality of life, something they wont get in our industry, and I can’t blame them. For those of us that are hoping that the alleged driver shortage continues, and they will all be on a £1k a week for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, well, you’ll be waiting a long time. It won’t happen in my lifetime put it that way.

Ken.

Why do these ‘reports’ never mention the real reasons young and older people no longer want to do this job? For example;

Poor pay, many jobs paying no more per hour than ten to fifteen years ago.
Long, unsociable hours which simply don’t belong in the 21st century.
The constant worry of having an accident and being guilty until proven innocent.
Getting pulled by vosa/police and fined for minor offencences.
The stereotype that is placed on us by the general public.

All of the above and more for £9.50-£10.50 per hour, what’s the point? You literally may aswell drive a fork lift truck for slghtly less money but far less hassle!

It’s the large transport firms them self’s that caused the problem by cutting rates hence pay to drivers and trying to squeeze every last minute out of a drivers duty time

Speaking to an agency driver last night, someone who I’ve known for many years, who said he had just received his three days work for next week. He said that’s not unusual and in the new year he was jacking the job in completely. He’s found a job outside of the industry and hopes he never has to drive a lorry again.

3 days work on the agency at this time of year? As a former agency man myself of 10 years standing, it was basically a blank cheque at this time.

Can’t blame him for knocking it on the head though. I reckon he is just the tip of a very large iceberg.

Ken.

Mickey mouse:
Why do these ‘reports’ never mention the real reasons young and older people no longer want to do this job?!

Because these reports are made by the same people asking the same questions to the same organisations. Not difficult to portray your side of the story in those circumstances.

Stanley Knife:
Speaking to an agency driver last night, someone who I’ve known for many years, who said he had just received his three days work for next week. He said that’s not unusual and in the new year he was jacking the job in completely. He’s found a job outside of the industry and hopes he never has to drive a lorry again.

A growing trend, I know several ‘experienced ‘ drivers that have done exactly the same in 2017 and not one of them misses the transport industry.
The problem is there’s a never ending stream of EE drivers to take their place so nothing changes.

Quinny:
Can’t blame him for knocking it on the head though. I reckon he is just the tip of a very large iceberg.

He’s in his late fifties working for a decent agency. He’s been told frequently throughout the year that there isn’t the volume of work to satisfy all on their books.

For the younger generation following in their Fathers foot steps is not for them especially when they have seen the hours and conditions their Dad or any of their relatives have and still do put up with.
The high cost of training,long unsociable hours put alot of them off especially when decent jobs with decent pay are limited.
Older generation have quite often,over the years have worked their way through the “ranks” settled in a “cushy” well paid job,paid off their mortgages, kids have flown the nest and no longer have the need to work the long hours,early oclock 24/7 rotas.
In the latter year before retiring I was quite happy to do no more than the absolutely max of 50 hrs even less if I could,Monday -Friday

Plenty of drivers out there,otherwise the pay would be much much higher.Why are hauliers not offering £15-20 an hour to tempt drivers ? Because they don’t need to.Simple as that.
I have never been in a shop,garage,timber yard etc etc and got the message “sorry,we don’t have that as we can’t get any deliveries”,guess deliveries are getting done just fine.
As for all the great jobs on different jobsites with very good pay,all the overtime you want,hours to suit etc etc,has anyone ever found one of them to be real ? I haven’t…

As a limper Ive worked my last shift yesterday for 2017, the contract I was working tends to enter chaos mode in the 2 week before the holidays as they try to cover the service for the 1 day off on Xmas day, so after past experiences on this contract, and the very little extra remunerations for the extra effort involved, Im sticking two fingers up at the TM & heading off to Fuerteventura on Thursday for a week or R&R, with no real intention of working until early January. Ive also made sure that whatever pittance Ive accumulated as holiday pay is paid next week, ahead of the bleak season next year.

Stanley Knife:

Quinny:
Can’t blame him for knocking it on the head though. I reckon he is just the tip of a very large iceberg.

He’s in his late fifties working for a decent agency. He’s been told frequently throughout the year that there isn’t the volume of work to satisfy all on their books.

Can you see the contradiction in your statement there? If it WAS a decent agency then they should have told those surplus drivers they couldn’t provide enough work and they should look elsewhere but being a typical agency they want people on hand just in case they have work come on. Three days a week long after the January downturn? They’re ■■■■■■■ crap not decent!

Quite simple really, who wants a low paid job where you need to work twice as many hours as a person who works half of the hours for the same money. Who out of all of the “drivers” on here would encourage their own kids into this let alone recommend anyone else to do this job. Nowadays kids want skilled jobs, better pay and conditions and who can blame them. Most of you on here who are driving have no alternative or options available to do anything else. So you simply do it out of that reason alone and just moan all day and night. There is an alternative coming known as Autonomy to fill the diver shortage or putting it in real terms, to fill the job that no one wants.

I have not driven in four years but I often get the urge to do the odd shift as I now work a 37.5 hour working week it feels strange (but good) to have my weekends free, there’s something about driving that’s in my blood from going out with my dad as a young boy but i bet that being stuck in an RDC for 4 or more hours would cure my hankering.

Richard8:
I have not driven in four years but I often get the urge to do the odd shift as I now work a 37.5 hour working week it feels strange (but good) to have my weekends free, there’s something about driving that’s in my blood from going out with my dad as a young boy but i bet that being stuck in an RDC for 4 or more hours would cure my hankering.

You are bang on with that comment Richard. I am also a lorry drivers son and I was just about to pack in lorry driving after only 3.5 years

General haulage/RDC’s had just about finished me off, but I managed to get a start on a really good job and now I almost enjoy driving the wagon

As a young non-truck driver, I thought I’d chip in here…

I’m 26 and would love to drive a truck. Driving with my own company, music and seeing new places sounds fantastic. What stops me is:

-Self-driving trucks being talked about so often. These will no doubt be here before I’m 68, so it wouldn’t be a job for life. Few jobs are for life, but this one seems to have a massive shake-up on the way. There will always need to be drivers, but realistically how many? This is the main stopping point for me.

-Money. I’m only on £25k a year- less than what a lot of HGV1 jobs appear to pay. However I work flexitime and only have to do 37.5 hours a week to achieve that. If I do manage to fall asleep at my desk doing such short hours, its not going to kill anyone.

-Family. I barely see my girlfriend as it is as I work Mon-Fri but she works all sorts of shifts. If I was away all week or exhausted after working a 15 hour shift, I’d see her even less.

-Employers. We have in-house drivers at work who are all brilliant- I’m going to assume my work are very good to drive for. But external drivers for the most part seem to moan about everything and come across almost depressed- always very friendly, but never have a good word to say about the job. The bureaucracy and micro-management so many employers put on you guys is frankly insulting.

-As said in another post, authorities. You can’t drive here. You can’t park there. You’ve driven for 10 minutes more than your time. It looks like an impossible job, and with LEZ being the future of cities, its only going to get worse. And then theres outwith the cities- when my Seat barely fits down my street because of parked cars, what chance does a tipper going to the new housing development at the end of the road have?

The public- what do so many car drivers not understand about lorrys and roundabouts? They straddle both lanes because they need both lanes, not for the fun of it. Yet Mary in her Corrolla must squeeze into the half lane remaining because its her lane and how dare the lorry delivering her dinner for the following week need more space. Then there is dodgy lane changes on the motorway, going by a lorry, pulling back infront and jamming on the breaks. I could go on but you guys know it far better than I do.

I briefly thought about trying to become a planner, but after a few hours in a transport office and an interview with one of the managers. I decided it wasn’t for me. Planners should be salespeople and little more- selling the space on the truck. The planning should be left to the ones driving the trucks who know what they are actually talking about. And as for their manager- smug didn’t even cover it.

Hats off to you all- it sounds like an amazing job until you drill down into it and realise everyone just wants to make your life difficult!