Driver Shortage Report very long

[blunder_man]

In the UK right now there is a shortage of licensed, qualified HGV drivers. This is having an impact on the haulage industry as well as the UK economy and it currently shows no sign of improving.

The UK is currently 60,000 HGV drivers short and it is predicted that by 2020 there will be a shortfall of 150,000 drivers.

With the average age of HGV drivers being 53, much older than the national average, and only 2% under the age of 25 many drivers are coming up to retirement while not enough young drivers are coming through to replace them.

The HGV driver shortage is limiting the haulage industry’s ability to deliver high quality services. If something isn’t done to attract more drivers to the industry the shortage will have a huge impact on goods being delivered around the UK and beyond.

What are the causes of the HGV driver shortage?
There are many factors that are contributing to the shortage of qualified drivers, here are some examples that have been attributed to the shortage.

An aging workforce

With an average age of 53 and 13% of HGV drivers over 60 a lack of new drivers coming through to replace the retired ones is a big concern.

Economic growth

The economic growth both nationally and internationally has increased the demand for HGV drivers to move more goods.

More directives from the EU

The introduction of the controversial Drivers CPC has meant experienced drivers are required to take extra training. This was seen as too much for many drivers who chose to retire rather than complete the Drivers CPC.

Perception of the industry

Haulage and logistics isn’t traditionally seen as the industry of choice for people looking for a career. It is hard to escape the impression that roles within the industry mainly involve moving and lifting.

Calais

The problems at the French port are having a negative impact on the industry as a whole. The press coverage accompanying it has shown the nation that being a HGV driver can be dangerous. There has been several incidents of drivers being threaten and intimidated by groups of desperate migrants trying to gain access in to their lorries. This kind of bad press will definitely impact the perception of the HGV drivers role.

Financial costs of becoming a HGV driver

There are a few things that a potential HGV driver has to pay for just to become qualified. The cost of the driving tests, medical, initial Drivers CPC and a digital tachograph card. All these costs before even finding a job acts like a huge barrier and most people interested in becoming a HGV driver just don’t have the funds upfront. For the potential earnings of the job the upfront costs are hard to justify.

Lack of acceptable facilities

There seems to be a lot of concern from existing HGV drivers about the conditions they work in. A lack of acceptable facilities such as clean, working toilet facilities in service stations and secure, safe lorry parks is not helping existing driver morale and retention.

Wages

The Labour government opened the floodgates to the EU workforce around 10 years ago and since then an influx of foreign HGV drivers who will work for much less has made it very difficult for a UK HGV driver to make a good wage. Haulage operators are choosing to bring in drivers from the likes of Poland and Lithuania as they can pay them less rather than opting for home grown drivers. Due to this wages within the industry seem to have stayed low even though there is high demand.

Insurers

Many haulage operators will not take on drivers under 25, even though they are qualified, as the insurance premiums would be too high. This is another barrier which is preventing young people becoming HGV drivers.

Work/Life balance

The long hours and time away from home is definitely having an impact on the amount of people joining the industry. There needs to be a better work/life balance so that drivers do not have to spend so much time away from their friends and family.

What do the drivers think is the cause of the shortage?
As the drivers are the ones currently working in the role where there is a shortage we thought it would be a good idea to ask them to comment on what they thought the main reasons behind the driver shortage were.

In 2 hours they was just under 100 drivers putting their comments across. This is just a few examples of what the drivers think of the HGV driver shortage crisis.

Drivers-comment-on-the-driver-shortage-crisis.png

These are just a few examples of the comments from the drivers, there were also a handful of drivers who believe there is no driver shortage, just a lack of operators willing to pay fair wages.

It is interesting to see the difference in opinion of what the the main issues are when you compare the drivers response to that of the transport operators.

Here are some of the results from the CILT driver shortage survey conducted in January 2015.

UK-HGV-driver-shortage-survey-results.png

HGV-driver-shortage-survey.png

You will clearly see that a number of these drivers are mentioning poor wages, yet when the transport operators were surveyed do not see the wages as much of a cause. Both drivers and operators seem to agree that the facilities are poor and there are too many financial barriers.

What are the associations doing to help combat the driver shortage?
Road-Haulage-Association.jpg

The Road Haulage Association has mounted a 5 point campaign to tackle the HGV driver shortage:

1. Government funding for firms to train new entrants
2. Excellent driver testing service
3. Promoting the industry
4. Driving up standards
5. Improving conditions for drivers

National-Lorry-Week.jpg

RHA launched ‘’Love the Lorry Week’’, which ran from 26th – 31st October, to raise awareness of the importance of the road freight industry and how essential HGV drivers are.

Richard Burnett, Chief Executive, said: “National Lorry Week’ will provide us with an opportunity to reach out to the public and politicians as never before to highlight our massive and positive contribution to daily life.”

Freight-Transport-Association.jpg

The Freight Transport Association are campaigning for some changes to help combat the shortage:

1. Student style loans for vocational training
2. Better driver facilities
3. Quicker turnaround of medical queries by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
4. A campaign to raise awareness of the logistics sector - in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions
5. Members to come together to promote the logistics industry and engage with the public

As well as campaign the FTA are holding a ‘Skills Summit’ which will look at how to ‘’Attract, Recruit and Retain’’. The summit is to be held in March 2016 and will cover:

• The skills shortage
• The logistics industry image
• Public perception

They are hoping that they can come up with some ideas to help attract new people to the industry as well as retain existing workers. You can find out more about this free to attend summit here.

The-Chartered-Institute-of-Logistics-and-Transport.png

The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport have been looking at the HGV driver shortage and in January 2015 published the results of a survey they conducted with their members.

The findings were stark. 74% of participants reported experiencing a driver shortage, with the shortfall mirrored in each region of the UK. 65% reported that their business had lost work as a result of the shortage and the majority were ‘very worried’ of long term viability unless the situation improves.

View the results of the driver shortage survey here.

In October 2015 the CILT submitted a written response to the Transport Committee inquiry which included their recommendations for the way forward:

1. A concerted effort by industry and government is needed to improve the public perception of the sector. The crucial role road haulage plays in the economy and a committed programme to improve promotion in schools and colleges and through schemes such as trailblazers should be highlighted by both government and the sector.

2. However, the message will ring hollow if steps are not taken to improve the welfare of drivers. Improvements in the provision of trunk road service areas with appropriate facilities is needed to demonstrate a basic respect for the profession. Further steps should be taken by the industry to build on recent successes to improve safety and reduce confrontation with vulnerable road users, as every headline of conflict further entrenches negative perceptions.

3. Greater investment must be made in training. The Driver CPC has been seen by some as a partial cause of the driver shortage, but experienced trained, and respected drivers provide the foundations for improving the image of the sector and a greater supply of drivers. Raising awareness of the value of the profession and raising the levels of respect of those who practice it will be a major step forward in aiding recruitment.

4. The industry must acknowledge and put in place a strategy to combat the overwhelming diversity imbalances. If 50% of the population fails to see a career in road haulage as a viable option the sector will struggle to solve the shortage crisis. Industry, regulators and government must work to find a means of unlocking this significant source of latent potential.

5. Steps should be taken to simplify the driver certification process and methods found to manage costs. Proposals of student loan style funding streams along with greater industry support must be investigated. Innovative solutions need to be explored to attract and retain young people in what is a well-paid, challenging and vital service to everyone in our economy.

At the beginning of February 2016 the CILT were called to appear before the committee to give evidence. Jolyon Drury of the CILT was joined by Adrian Jones from Unite the Union.

Jolydon stressed the urgent need for sufficient truck stops in busy areas and that this is a matter of public health. Jolyon claimed that the negative image of the industry is intensified by this neglect of simple and necessary facilities for drivers to protect their health.

When asked to summarise the three main issues presenting the driver profession both Adrian and Jolyon agreed that the negative work/life balance, facilities and the lack of career progression were major issues in attracting new recruits to choose a career in professional driving.

What are the Government doing to help solve the driver shortage crisis?
In September 2015 the Government launched an inquiry into the driver shortage. They instructed the Transport Committee to conduct an inquiry into skills and workforce planning in the road haulage sector.

The Committee’s objective is to investigate what action Government has taken to address industry concerns about a lack of skilled drivers in the road haulage sector, and assess how effective the Government’s response has been.

You can review the latest evidence that has been submitted to the inquiry here.

At the end of 2015 the Government finally, after a 3rd submission, approved a HGV driver Trailblazer apprenticeship scheme. Although this has been approved the industry associations are still pushing for the government to confirm that the licence acquisition is included in the scheme.

Richard Burnett, Chief Executive of the RHA meet with the Department of Business Innovation and Skills and said:

"The positive news was that the Minister confirmed that the LGV Trailblazer Apprenticeship has been approved. The challenging area concerned the need to convince government that the apprenticeship funding must cover the cost of training for the licence acquisition and for an emergency £150 million funding package to be made payable direct to hauliers.

“I emphasised to the minister that an apprenticeship which failed to cover the training costs associated with licence acquisition was about as much use as a truck without an engine.”

Sally Gibson, FTA Skills Development Manager, commenting on the news that the HGV driver Trailblazer apprentice scheme was approved, said:

“FTA has been stressing to Government the importance of the HGV Driver Apprenticeship for a long time now, particularly in light of the Apprenticeship Levy so we are pleased that this standard has now finally been approved.

“However we do now require the Minister to confirm that within the new Trailblazer Apprenticeship the full cost of the licence acquisition will be funded so that businesses can make full use of the apprenticeship.”

The big concern
If something isn’t done soon to combat the HGV driver shortage the problem will start to impact the whole country. With the next round of the Driver CPC in 2019 if things haven’t improved we can expect to see a wave of driver retirements.
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[the_nodding_donkey]

And?

[harry_monk]

There isn’t a driver shortage.

[evil8beezle]

I just love the way the Road Haulage Association list: Government funding for firms to train new entrants
Would they care to explain why someone else should pick up the tab for training their future employees?

Sounds more like camouflage for, we can’t attract new entrants because we pay shirt buttons…

[ovlov_jay]

Ntsa. There’s a shortage of people willing to be mugged off, but no shortage of mugs. HTH

[evil8beezle]

Harry Monk:
There isn’t a driver shortage.

You can’t say that, there was apparently 50,000 stationary trucks last year, and now its risen to 60,000.

None of the industry in the report above want to address the elephant in the room.
Which is: You won’t attract new drivers into the industry unless you improve wages.

I can understand why though, as none of them want to blink first, up rates and because noncompetitive…
Instead they would prefer to farm in large quantities of limpers, keep the wheels rolling and squeeze profits margins even further.
With a bit of luck, a few are backing themselves into a corner and will go bust soon.
That way the rest may wake up and take the necessary action.

[conan_the_librarian]

Evil8Beezle:

Harry Monk:
There isn’t a driver shortage.

You can’t say that, there was apparently 50,000 stationary trucks last year, and now its risen to 60,000.

None of the industry in the report above want to address the elephant in the room.
Which is: You won’t attract new drivers into the industry unless you improve wages.

I can understand why though, as none of them want to blink first, up rates and because noncompetitive…
Instead they would prefer to farm in large quantities of limpers, keep the wheels rolling and squeeze profits margins even further.
With a bit of luck, a few are backing themselves into a corner and will go bust soon.
That way the rest may wake up and take the necessary action.

Nail on the head. If there was a driver shortage, there wouldn’t be class 1 jobs advertised at barely above minimum wage. It’s simple economics, supply and demand etc.

[robbo99]

Lets hope then that there remains a Driver shortage, as we are told, because if all of a sudden 60000 plus more individuals take up LGV driving, then wages will plummet even lower than a snakes belly.

[robbo99]

[muckles]

Whether there is actually a driver shortage or not, there is a lot of talk about it, maybe the industry is looking at an ageing workforce and realises if they don’t train and recruit drivers they’ll be be a problem in the waiting, but I’ve been hearing this for 20 years.

I still have a copy of a Truck magazine from around 1996 - 1997 saying where have all the good drivers gone? Yep I’m a bit of a hoarder, only on the internet as I can’t get out of the front door.

As Evilbeezie has said
If the Industry really believes they have a problem, stop spending money on long winded reports and PR stunts, you only need to do 3 things to attract drivers into the Industry.

Raise wages, to make it worthwhile somebody investing thousands getting their licence. I’ve been looking at agency rates round here and they seem to be lower than when I was on agency in 2004.
Reduce Hours, Just because you can do a 15 hour day doesn’t mean you have to expect your drivers to do it. Those that chose to be away Tramping should get fair reward for the time spent away.
Improve facilities, As most of the large logistics operations run much of the warehousing, the Industry can do this internally. External facilities need government help, but that could be as simple as a change in planning permission for distribution sites to include over-night parking.

[radar19]

They keep banging on about driver shortages yet there always seems to be someone to drive the trucks. Maybe they are waking up to the fact that this cheap labour they imported from the Continent might be drying up soon and once again revealing the hole they are desperate trying to avoid acknowledging.

[cov]

Propaganda and Bull

Flood the market

Lower the pay

Get back in your places !

Only people doing well hauliers and training schools .

[carryfast]

Evil8Beezle:
I just love the way the Road Haulage Association list: Government funding for firms to train new entrants
Would they care to explain why someone else should pick up the tab for training their future employees?

Sounds more like camouflage for, we can’t attract new entrants because we pay shirt buttons…

How can it be about the costs of training when we’ve got new drivers who’ve funded their own training not being able to find work easily and often subject to the same old ‘experience’ issue ?.

More like diversionary tactics and an excuse to keep the door open to imported labour to keep wage levels down.As opposed to what’s needed in removing truck driving,from any potential visa list.

[daytrunker]

There’s not a driver shortage there’s a shortages of decent and proper wages.
Until its sorted ( not that it will) there always be govt and hauliers bleating on about drivers being the problem,the problem is wages are crap who would come into the industry knowing wot toss the wages are.

[juddian]

A small rant.

Its not just wages, some drivers even now are on excellent packages, and left to their own devices can do the job with their eyes shut, often these drivers need no supervision at all, the job would get done whether the growing number of bloody suits turned up or not simply because thats what good drivers have always done, taken a pride in their work.

In no particular order, managers, supervisors, apparatchiks, admin by the trainload, greasy pole climbers, various arse kissers, civil servants of all descriptions, between them all they can’t bloody leave things alone, they’ve got to come up with something to justify their non jobs, whether its dcpc or spyware or driver facing cameras or more bloody debrief (oh perlease) sheets and paperwork or training by people who can’t do the job anyway, there’s more ■■■■■■■■ added every year than you could shake a stick at, if its not EU cobblers its VOSA (whoever they are this week) county or town councils then the various RDC’s with their armies of bloody admin/clerks and H&S utter ■■■■■■■■, drivers jumping through bloody hoops because some chancer employed a half wit cos he was cheap who did something one might expect of a half wit, so thousands of other drivers now have to jump through those hoops to satisfy the rubbish that the above hangers on have come up with in the usual knee jerk reaction to something that wouldn’t have happened had common sense been present and half wit never been allowed anywhere near a lorry.

But oh no, not on your bloody nelly, we’ll dumb the job down to said half wits level, we’ll design and order lorries by the thousand that half wits can attend the steering wheel of…doesn’t matter that the thousands of lorry drivers didn’t ask for want or need any of this tripe, but they’ll have to dumb down to that level cos we need half wits innit.

Its little wonder that the good drivers who need no supervision and are insulted because the one size fits all mentality of incompetent management can’t filter through their blinkers that its only the idiots who need monitoring so if they didn’t employ idiots in the first place they could all bugger off home and sit on their arses twiddling their thumbs whilst the drivers just get on with doing what they have been doing all their sodding lives.

Good drivers in good jobs are being hounded out gradually too, why anyone would want to destroy morale fixing something that wasn’t ever broke i’m buggered if i know, but each new pointless stupid idea they come up with is the straw that breaks another few hundred perfectly good camel’s backs, morales destroyed, pride they once took in their work eroded to nothing as they are told they are dinosaurs simply because they don’t need a score of computers to drive the lorry for them or do their job competently, they’ve been doing the job properly since these bloody suits were snotty nosed kids dangling off their mothers breast.

Now they’ve self destructed their own industry they want the state to bale them out, it won’t happen of course we’ll just carry on racing to the bottom and in 5 years time we’ll still be in the same boat.

Am i wrong?
By the way this isn’t just our industry, its everywhere.

edit, the shortage won’t matter anyway cos all lorries will be driving themselves by the end of the decade, apparently

[cav551]

Full of suit speak ■■■■■■■■." Trailblazer HGV apprenticeship scheme". Some prat got paid to dream up that title. Not one of these morons has a clue. As has been pointed out the industry wants the taxpayer to pick up the bill to train new drivers and doesn’t see wages as being relevant. Well dream on. The day it all grinds to a halt can’t come soon enough.

[goldfinger]

I’ve noticed over recent weeks - even days, quite a few ‘apprentice driver’ type jobs have started to appear on job sites…

[harry_monk]

I was looking on Indeed.com earlier today and there was an HGV1 job in Northampton which over 300 people had applied for. That doesn’t suggest a shortage of drivers to me.

[evil8beezle]

Harry Monk:
I was looking on Indeed.com earlier today and there was an HGV1 job in Northampton which over 300 people had applied for. That doesn’t suggest a shortage of drivers to me.

And we all know that these adverts tell the truth!
What we don’t know is how many go ‘F that!’ once they find out the details…

[winseer]

I agree with all of this, but what will end up happening if we’re not careful is that “Brexit will be blamed” when the house of cards that is UK road trade collapses once our access to cheap labour has been removed.

What would happen for instance if in ten years time, only firms able to pay a driver’s wage of £20ph can get drivers? The big boys will ■■■■ it and see, but the small yards will die out like our pubs have.
The so-called “Phillip Green Settlement” today where he gets to default half the BHS pension he was originally made rich by, and is 100% his responsibility - sets a dangerous precedent:
In the years to come, small firms that are struggling will now consider “looting their own pension funds” as STANDARD, and what Maxwell did to Mirror Group Pension Fund will become the NORM rather than the exception. Phillip Green should have paid in full OR been jailed and been declared criminally bankrupt. He’s friendly with too many high-ups though, so this people-friendly outcome never happens of course in these cases.

Supermarket rates are creeping up… No fanfare though. If Supermarkets want to attract British home-grown drivers back rather than immigrants working for the same money they are prepared to pay on agency, then they need to offer decent FULL TIME CONTRACTS again, rather than these pseudo-self employed umbrella things that seem like a good thing until you realize that it’s the lower end of Self-Employed you are actually getting… Like on Uber.