Jelliot:
I haven’t filled out your survey as I don’t think you’re coming from the right direction…
If for generation after generation you have an essential part of society that you systematically witch hunt, belittle, and whose members even though proud themselves, are continuously treated with contempt by the general public, then there’s little wonder that there is a problem recruiting and retaining a stable work force…The problem often starts with the customer who are them selves under pressure to deliver the goods at the lowest possible prices… all they’re interested in is maximising profit… the company that’s going to win the job is often the company that’ll do for the least amount of money… that then reflects on the equipment that they operate and there fore the personal they attract…
Until you pay the haulage industry what they’re actually worth then things are not going to get any better…
In recent years the over zealous health and safety Nazis who naively bumble around leaving unexplainable turmoil in their wake have encroached into the industry who are them selves covertly driven by the unscrupulous and gouging but necessary insurance industry…
Continuously recruiting inappropriate high turn over staff to infill a quick fix might get you out of an immediate problem but it’s is not a long term solution. Until the industry accepts that driving a truck requires years of accumulated skill to have a profitable out come and rewards its employees appropriately then the situation will continue…
Jeff…
I reckon you have it spot on there Jeff.
What I am seeing for some years now and not just inside the haulage industries, is a unrealenting race to the bottom, everybody is encouraged to pick up a knife and stab the guy in front of you until the “winner” last man standing will be required to cut cost just a little more for the good of corperate profit billioneres who will in turn outsource your job to some lucky punter from a third world economy who is not into the banksters for a morgage on a first world house. The bubble CANNOT keep growing and a reset is long overdue.
I was lucky in that when I left school at 16, I got apprenticed into engineering until I was 21 and able to take my class 1 then absorbed into Dads company. I have no regrets about that as it took me all over Europe and being free and single, could stay out for months on end for the sake of a lifestyle that also brought in a few beer tokens. However in my late 20’s it was time to grow up and settle down so back to a 9 to 5 in engineering making about £7.50 an hour in the early 2000’s.
As I read in some of these very forums, there are guys doing night trunks over weekends for the same money 15 years later. Am I skilled driver. Yes. Would I work for that money. HELL NO!!!