Why is it that there’s suposed to be a shortage of drivers in this country.
But there seems to be plenty of drivers out there that cant get permanant work
someone’s telling porky’s
There’s no driver shortage and hasn’t been for a while.
In my local paper they are still advertising training courses for HGV drivers with the usual earn 000’s a week, secure job, recession proof income blah blah blah… this ad is posted in the vacancies section and guess what …It’s the only advert there!!
A lot of this myth came from the misleading adverts from certain training providers, the agencies also believed the same crap.
That is why there is so many agencies all advertising jobs they do not have, for companies they do not represent.
It is also why so many people are spending upwards of 2 grand to gain a licence they will never be able to use.
There isn’t a driver shortage and in the 35 plus years i have been around haulage, there never was.
There are also far too many trucks for the amount of goods to be moved.
Its manufactured by driving schools to get money from noobs on false promises, very much in the same way simon cowell manufactures mediocre singers on talent shows, they both are willing to do whatever it takes to get the money of the public.
Think about it if you knew nothing of the industry and saw earn £££££ only part with a thousand quid gaurenteed job and income, etc you would sign up straightaway if you had a thought that you “might” want to be a LGV driver, it would tips the scales for you to say yeah I’ll do it
There is not, and never was a driver shortage, it is a ‘life raft’ thrown to the desperate who find themselves unemployed and debt ridden. It is nothing more than a pyramid scheme from those immoral enough to make money from the misery of others… At this point, entering stage left, come the low pay employers and dodgy training schools.
Give me £500 quid and I can point you in the direction of a job or 2!!!
There is NO driver shortage, there hasn’t been one as far as I can see, it’s just a scam…
Think I will get onto watchdog and see if they can investigate the promises and stuff that these companies are implying■■?
As has been covered before if you are a newbie check out local hauliers for a job before commiting money to driver training.There are very few vacancies at present.and there are lots of experienced drivers ready to take up any slack…Widen your sights and look into bus driving where you might not have to pay for training and there are jobs at the end of the course. HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL OF YOU.
The country is short of drivers who
want to work for peanuts,
want no overtime or nights out money,
dont care about the condition of their vehicle etc…
They want balloons who will drive for £5.73 p/h
and be on call 24/7
You look at the virtually identical adverts that say “Learn to be an IT exec, and earn thousands a second”… they’re all trash too. There’s no shortage of IT people either, and most of them earn no more than we do.
I think there was a time a few years back that it was difficult for some hualiers to get drivers. However there were plenty of people in the country who had HGV licences it’s just they didn’t want to put up with the Pay and Condition offered.
At one point they announced that they wanted to attract more women as there were many women in the country with HGV licences who weren’t working. I think they assumed that they had left the industry to look after children etc.
The truth is tha tmost of the had HGV’s to drive horse boxes, Princess Anne being one fo them.
Can’t really see these upper class horsey women wanting to turn up at some RDC 
but from my experience dealing with them. God help any snotty little RDC waller who gives them an order. 
Macka Packa:
The country is short of drivers who
want to work for peanuts,
want no overtime or nights out money,
dont care about the condition of their vehicle etc…They want balloons who will drive for £5.73 p/h
and be on call 24/7
Absolutely agree with you 100%.
Macka Packa:
The country is short of drivers who
want to work for peanuts,
want no overtime or nights out money,
dont care about the condition of their vehicle etc…They want balloons who will drive for £5.73 p/h
and be on call 24/7
One of the best descriptions of rampant and rapacious capitalism during a recession that I have ever read 
It isn’t hard to work out that the basic figures used in these adverts are actual figures published by our glorious government, with the aid of their partners in employment crime, the agencies.
If a agency does their usual trick of publishing the 3 jobs that they might have a chance of getting a salesperson in to talk about, the Jobcentre then sees this as 3 jobs on their books, as usual more than one agency gets wind of the possible work and also put an advert in the job centre, so now 5 agencies are “recruiting”, and hay presto, next thing you know our wonderful government is shouting from their ivory tower that there;s now 15 drivers jobs available. That looks real good in the sound bite world they live in but doesn’t mean there’s any jobs at all because there only might be chance for a agency to drop a free mug into somewhere.
Multiply this by the amount of so-called agency “jobs” around the country and you can soon see how this will build into quite a large number!
The so called training schools, I was that because alot of them are nothing more than agencies for instructors with trucks, then pick up on this sound bite figure and twist it for their own good.
Its all a smoke and mirrors trick, and whilst our beloved government are shouting the thousands of jobs that don’t exist around, it will always look a good thing to the British public, and be yet another reason for our fellow europeans to come and seek work here.
Oh I sound bitter i know, I’ve just passed my C+E after all the C work dried up around here. I knew that work is easy to find as hens teeth, but I wanted to do it, and yeah I’m now looking to leave the country, just because of the things like is described above.
Immigrants, if you can’t beat them, join them
I’ve got to agree with all the comments posted.
I’ve worked for my employer for 22 yrs now(a big national company) going from 7.5ton and passing my hgv1a good few yrs ago(paid for by them).
But I keep thinking i’ll take the redunancy package they keep offering and do the continental work that i’ve always wanted to do but when i look around it aint worth the money some of these companies that do have the vacancies are willing to pay.
At present im home every night. finish when im suppose to and take home £2000 a month.but the work is so boring,doing the same jobs day in day out.
ok. I’d have a lovely new truck but i’d be away all week and only for a extra couple of hundred pound a month.
These seem to be the companies that always have the same vacancies week in week out.
I guess I should stay with the devil I know and do the boring job im use to.
If we didn’y know any better, it’s easy to get sucked into stuff like this;
hgvsimply.co.uk/?gclid=CPSi7 … 3godjQW4DA
or even;
easyashgv.co.uk/?gclid=CMKPz … 3godQFFXDQ
both claim you can earn £600/week after 5 days training, well I suppose you could if you could find somebody willing to pay that for a driver with no experience 
I feel badly for those guys that actually believe all this, and get into financial trouble thinking they’ll soon earn it to pay back. It’s unethical and these companies are nothing but unprofessional.
Tiger.
garnerlives:
Its manufactured by driving schools to get money from noobs on false promises, …
Hi garnerlives, that’s a very interesting comment, but I’d like to ask whether you can see the difference between a “driving school” and a ‘middleman’ type company who simply insert themselves into the process by means of making potentially misleading statements?
IMHO, it’s maybe a tad unfair of you to lump all “driving schools” together in the way that you seem to have done.
In my experience of working for several “driving schools,” I’ve yet to see one that makes any kind of “promise,” because IMHO a genuine “driving school” already knows that making “promises” isn’t a good idea.
IMO if you intended to take your LGV driving test do your home work get advice on who is the best for your needs.
If you go though a middle man cos there offer finance and that the way you go,
but remember that you will pay though the nose for it that way.
There are very good school out there that are cheaper than some.
Driver shortage is a myth, and as the transport industry as just had the worse 4 months for a long time you may not see an improvement for some time
Also some LGV schools say that you could walk in to a LGV driving job straight away this is IMO a myth as well most companies want 2 years on road experience.
In the mo I think that if you have £2k to spend on you LGV then I would save it and wait till the industry picks up
Del
dieseldave:
IMHO, it’s maybe a tad unfair of you to lump all “driving schools” together in the way that you seem to have done.In my experience of working for several “driving schools,” I’ve yet to see one that makes any kind of “promise,” because IMHO a genuine “driving school” already knows that making “promises” isn’t a good idea.
Totally agree DD.
I know of one local school that tells the trainees the truth about the current situation 
but does their best to try and find them a foot on the ladder by using their local contacts which have been built up over the years.
They do assess the trainees first for attitude etc before recommending them which is a fair point as their company reputation is at stake as well as that of other future trainees.
This is one of the best threads on this subject that I have come across and I have already put a link to this in my usual welcome to new trainees that pop up on the new & wannabe forum.
Just to put my 'ore in.
Just over a year ago, I was working for a local engineering place. My job wasn’t great but I did get out delivering to people and out on site fitters quite a bit - and I really enjoyed it, even though it was only in a van.
I kept thinking I wanted to drive something bigger, a proper lorry. I looked into it and signed up for a “too good to be true” class 2 course, and free class 1 (and, yes, it was too good to be true) I sorted that out though and just did a straight foreward rigid course - and flew through it.
Now, I didn’t do any homework but to my way of thinking if driving is what I wanted to do - I’d need a license and then I’d start looking into jobs, after all, though I could see most of it was B.S. Hopefully there’d be jobs out there even if there wasn’t really a “driver shortage”
I’ve had odds and sods of work, and I love it - but I need a full time job, I’m only just better off now than if I was on the dole 
This year’s plan - Happy new year by the way- is to find full time work, even if it’s an awfull job, hopefully get my class 1 and start sorting myself out. With the possibility of a jaunt in Canada in the next couple of years.
Frankly though, it’s not going to be easy - I didn’t get sucked in by any lies really, I’ve chosen my career at a bad time and will have to live with it. It’s good advise to newcomers though, it’s not an easy industry to get into right now - you should think long and hard before booking training, and be careful of these “offers” Too good to be true is usually just what it says on the tin.
dieseldave:
garnerlives:
Its manufactured by driving schools to get money from noobs on false promises, …Hi garnerlives, that’s a very interesting comment, but I’d like to ask whether you can see the difference between a “driving school” and a ‘middleman’ type company who simply insert themselves into the process by means of making potentially misleading statements?
IMHO, it’s maybe a tad unfair of you to lump all “driving schools” together in the way that you seem to have done.In my experience of working for several “driving schools,” I’ve yet to see one that makes any kind of “promise,” because IMHO a genuine “driving school” already knows that making “promises” isn’t a good idea.
Good point well made mate, yes I do see the difference between the two, and maybe it was a tad cynical and wrong of me to lump them all in the same boat/tar with the same brush etc. However I have seen driving school websites which promise these false truths and yes I know there are good guys out there, and there are some a holes out there, but from my experience of when I was looking around at who to train with, there are some stand alone driving schools making promises that maybe aren’t 100% how it is, and i’ve just had a look now whilst typing this out and found a couple, so they are out there.
I apologise to all the decent folk who run driving schools that do have a soul and don’t lead people up the garden path, didn’t mean to insult you by tarring you with the bad guys brush 