This has been covered many times in this forum and elsewhere - there is no shortage of drivers , there is a shortage of drivers prepared to work for the rates on offer out there at the moment . The fact that we have been given two payrises in the last 2 months tells me that rates are going up , and good decent drivers are getting hard to find and more importantly keep. Decent employers recognise the worth of a good driver and do their best to retain them , most of the others treat you as a bum on a seat that can be replaced with another bum on a seat- apparently theres no shortage of bums for seats that work for minimum wage or just above it . We are now getting another £30 a day (and thats in the bank after tax ) and have been given snap accounts to use as well . A couple of drivers have left lately just because they want to try other things that we don’t do ( powder tanks and low loaders ) and we are finding it hard to replace them - most dont like the fact we state that you MAY be required to do 4 -5 nights out a week . We are based in Northern Ireland some of our work is day work in N.I were you will be home every night , some is N. I. and Southern Ireland which will mean 2-3 nights a week and then the guys who do the Scottish and English work who get a boat on a Monday morning and are back on a Friday evening 4 nights out possibly a 5’th if you run out of hours but its only a run in on the Saturday morning never a days work.If you want home every night the office will do their best to keep you on that kind of work but if push comes to shove then you will be expected to do the odd night out - its that kind of a deal , on the other side of that I’m happy to do 4-5 nights out but sometimes I manage to get home 1 or 2 nights a week but because I’m happy to do the nights out I’m never docked if I do get home for a night .
beefy4605:
- most dont like the fact we state that you MAY be required to do 4 -5 nights out a week .
That’s instantly going to put off any young people with a family. It’s not normal to be someone with another half and young kids to want to be away from home most of the week. Hell it’s not even normal with a young family to be wanting to do an 11-12hr or more working day. I do a changeover with a lad whose missus recently had a kid and even though he’s home every day his aim is to get back and finished as soon as possible. He does the job properly, he just won’t hang around for a chat anymore any longer than he has to.
Haulage want younger blood coming in but they want people to continue to run hours that society have long since moved on from. It isn’t only the hauliers that need to change either, the whole logistics sector does because how many hours you do in a week are needless, hours that are wasted sat there waiting to just get started to be loaded and tipped or waiting for paperwork? Certainly on the fridges probably half your working week if you’re doing Tesco and the like. When I’m on days doing our own store deliveries quite a few are on you with a forklift as soon as your wheels are stopped because they appreciate that hold ups have consequences for you but there’s far too many who just ignore you’re there and will be an hour before they start you and then take an age to unload you. When you mention that they’re robbing you of time at home and sleep they look at you with disbelief because they’re incapable of understanding that our job doesn’t just finish because it’s 5.30pm like theirs does and the longer we’re there the later we get home.
Self driving vehicles are far enough off that we’re going to hit a point where there actually isn’t enough drivers because they’ve retired. Companies won’t get their deliveries and Tesco can stamp and stomp their feet and threaten to punish suppliers as much as they want but if there’s nobody to drive the trucks because people don’t want to waste 20hrs a week of their life they don’t need to sat waiting at an RDC then Tesco ain’t getting their stuff.
Conor:
beefy4605:
- most dont like the fact we state that you MAY be required to do 4 -5 nights out a week .
That’s instantly going to put off any young people with a family. It’s not normal to be someone with another half and young kids to want to be away from home most of the week. Hell it’s not even normal with a young family to be wanting to do an 11-12hr or more working day. I do a changeover with a lad whose missus recently had a kid and even though he’s home every day his aim is to get back and finished as soon as possible. He does the job properly, he just won’t hang around for a chat anymore any longer than he has to.
Haulage want younger blood coming in but they want people to continue to run hours that society have long since moved on from. It isn’t only the hauliers that need to change either, the whole logistics sector does because how many hours you do in a week are needless, hours that are wasted sat there waiting to just get started to be loaded and tipped or waiting for paperwork? Certainly on the fridges probably half your working week if you’re doing Tesco and the like. When I’m on days doing our own store deliveries quite a few are on you with a forklift as soon as your wheels are stopped because they appreciate that hold ups have consequences for you but there’s far too many who just ignore you’re there and will be an hour before they start you and then take an age to unload you. When you mention that they’re robbing you of time at home and sleep they look at you with disbelief because they’re incapable of understanding that our job doesn’t just finish because it’s 5.30pm like theirs does and the longer we’re there the later we get home.
Self driving vehicles are far enough off that we’re going to hit a point where there actually isn’t enough drivers because they’ve retired. Companies won’t get their deliveries and Tesco can stamp and stomp their feet and threaten to punish suppliers as much as they want but if there’s nobody to drive the trucks because people don’t want to waste 20hrs a week of their life they don’t need to sat waiting at an RDC then Tesco ain’t getting their stuff.
It aint just this game, Ive got mates in the pub trade, restaurant trade, all the building trades, care homes, you name it…and they are ALL struggling for staff, do you blame the education system for teaching them that work doesnt pay, or do you blame the benefit system for paying people not to work ?......or as I saw on LinkedIn yesterday, is it the "furlough" scheme keeping too many away from the workspace ?, 8m still being paid to do sweet FA, WTF is that about ?.....I certainly know plenty who are taking the ■■■■, and a hell of a lot them are "drivers" awaiting the cessation of the IR35 clamp down, its not rocket science if you ran your business correctly to think Ill have a bit of this, easy dollar this 80% sponsored sun bathing 
Conor:
hours that are wasted sat there waiting to just get started to be loaded and tipped or waiting for paperwork? Certainly on the fridges probably half your working week if you’re doing Tesco and the like. When I’m on days doing our own store deliveries quite a few are on you with a forklift as soon as your wheels are stopped because they appreciate that hold ups have consequences for you but there’s far too many who just ignore you’re there and will be an hour before they start you and then take an age to unload you.
Cost externalization. It doesn’t cost them anything to delay drivers who aren’t on their payroll so why rush especially if they have drivers of their OWN sat there they just see ££ signs ticking away so they’ll tend to them first. Don’t ask how I know 
They’ll try to make it less obvious as ‘‘other’’ drivers will occasionally complain or threaten to leave without loading/unloading. I used to go to a place every evening, they’d always make me wait for 3-4 hours while they sorted out their own trailers. My company told me we can’t do anything about it as they’re our customers…On one occasion I did pull out after waiting for over 4 hours as I mistakenly understood my vehicle was urgently needed back at the yard for another run and got an ear full for it so blame your spineless boss for it if you’re regularly being kept for hours especially if it happens at teh same place/s.
When I was delivering to random large places (Tesco among them) at least once a week I would witnss a scnene where a driver was losing it threatening to leave etc. but the staff usually just shrug cause it’s none of their business. It’s a chain of idiots and the one at teh top looks at one thing only and that’s their own bottom line (financially)