Thanks guys, keep it coming. 
To those who want to know if operators can answer their questions on the subject, actually that’s a bloody good point…Leave it with me for now…
Where’s Lucy
Londontrucker123:
Would any of these operators be willing to come on and explain why…■■I would genuinely like hear the reasons they are in such a predicament.
Well as an employer I’m seriously considering asking for that brown envelope I handed to Tony Blair back! 
He promised me a ready supply of cheap labour at almost minimum wage, saying I’d never have to worry again about T&C’s and driver retention. But he’s a liar, and even the EE’s are turning their noses up at what I’m offering saying there’s easier ways to scrape an existence without doing 60+ hours a week with silly start times, compulsory overtime at what I think is a rather generous quid an hour extra. They say they don’t like the constant harassment by some spotty oik on the phone, interrogation after the event needing to explain every minute on the Tacho, Filthy RDC holding cells, ■■■■ stenched parking, and exorbitantly priced greasy slop that devours any night out money they get whole. They say that they’d rather work in another industries, and just leave the battered truck in the yard after filling out the insurance claim forms yet again… 
Well Mr Blair, I hope you rot in hell as this isn’t what you promised me, and if I can’t get away with paying minimum wage, and start having to care for my staff, how the hell am I meant to undercut the competition and keep the firm running? May I remind you that I need to cream off a tidy wage for half the hours of my drivers, and my Aston doesn’t run on fairy dust you Twonk!!! 
Come on Mr Blair, tell me■■?
Think it should read Stupid Driver Shortage,there are jobs but think what operators mean is they can’t find enough desperate or stupid drivers to fill jobs paying £7-£8 an hour 60+ hours a week in crap kit sleeping in stinking lay bys.
And until firms realise drivers are actually valuable and without them nowt would get shifted and paid a decent wage and conditions for a decent job nothing will change.
Because in my humble opinion we are undervalued &, treated like scum by people who can’t do our job , but think it’s an easy life .
When my dad started driving wagons nearly 60 years ago , drivers were paid the same as farm labourers . ( No offence to farm labourers) . Things have not moved on much in the last 36 years I’ve been driving , hence no new drivers taking up the slack as old uns retire .
Poor wages, obsessive HSE, traffic volumes, zero hour contracts, agencies, lack of facilities, long hours, the list goes on…
Unless you have had a lifelong desire to be a lorry driver, there’s not one thing that makes the job attractive to anybody anymore.
From a distance of being retired for nearly two years now I look back and wonder why I did it at all, I had to pay, like nearly everybody else, a lot of money for my C+E, in most other industries you are paid while you are an apprentice, if you want to earn a bit (and it is a bit) more money you have to put your hand in your pocket for an ADR, we have to pay for most, if not all in some cases, documentation to do the job, Licence, Medical, ADR, CPC Tacho Card.
in a lot of cases as some one has already said we are treated like something the cat dragged in, and also like idiots, the hours can be brutal 60 70 a week, I would not like to think I was starting at 03.00, in fact I doubt I could do it anymore, the wages are, in a lot of cases, are unacceptably low, driving a 60’ 44 ton vehicle on today’s roads with all the red tape and responsibility that goes with that is surely worth more than £9,00 per hour?.
There has also been a tendency in the last few years for company’s to move away from paying o/t rates and weekend enhancements, and some even try to deduct breaks, a thing a lot of agency’s do but still charge the company’s for ALL hours worked, I have seen the invoices.
Agency’s are parasites that ■■■■ hundreds of jobs out of the industry, and I have written to MY MP asking that stricter legislation is brought in to curb them, something all of you should do, the importing of cheap eastern European’s might slow down with BREXIT hopefully.
The attitude of the enforcement agency’s stinks towards truck drivers all they seem to want to do is prosecute you for something, the public’s attitude due to the bad press everytime their is an accident, is also against us
Lucy:
Thanks guys, keep it coming.To those who want to know if operators can answer their questions on the subject, actually that’s a bloody good point…Leave it with me for now…
It would be interesting to see if any of the operators views on reasons for the “driver shortage” actually resemble drivers views (you know, the ones who actually look for/apply for/refuse to accept/undertake, the actual jobs they advertise).
I think the majority will know the answer already.
If you take this approach it would be interesting to see answers from a range of employers - not just the corporate DHL clones but the smaller operators. Also interested to see their response to drivers opinions on this subject as after all we are apparently the ones they can’t attract not just new blood.
I don’t think agencies help much these days. I they’re there to offer work to companies on a temp basis as we all know but the way people are treated by them kinda says alot. They treat us like… There’s not even an ounce of respect for the people who make their money for them. We are treated with contempt too much of the time
They like to rip us off every chance.
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indeed.co.uk/cmp/Arriva-Nor … bus+driver
£8.25 for carrying cargo that talks (and blame YOU - the driver, for EVERYTHING)!!!
How do I know this?
I worked there about 15 years ago, And NOWT’S changed…! Oh, hang on… The wages look as if they went up all of a couple of quid an hour since I was there…
Roads and people are way worse than they are now though too… So would you take it…■■?
As I see it, the simple answer is that there is only a shortage of drivers for the companies trying to keep pay and conditions low.
I left the industry due to health reasons 15 months ago, and I see nothing whatsoever to tempt me back into it once I’ve regained my health.
A lot of companies only want to employ brain dead idiots these days, those that will toe the company line, never think for themselves and always phone in when the encounter a problem, like a blown bulb. For this the companies want to pay the least amount possible, and then moan to the FTA and RHA about the driver shortage and attempt to get the government to do something about it, continually failing to understand that the problem is of their own making.
I was a driver with 32 years experience in the UK and throughout Europe, I have a brain, can navigate anywhere without a sat nav and also without hitting bridges, I can carry out various common repairs to help keep the wheels turning, I am capable of doing the job whilst being left alone to get on with it. Could I now work for a company with a rule book the size of War and Peace, hell no, and to add injury to insult, to think that anybody would anybody expect me to work for one of these ‘control freak’ companies for the amazing wages of National Minimum Wage!
Ask your sample companies exactly what their terms and conditions are, what benefits they offer their employees, pensions and holidays etc, bank holiday working, and then ask for real life pay examples, NOT on target earnings, there is where you will find the reasons for their un-filled positions.
Juddian:
Money is important but not the be all and end all, but even the standard general haulage outfits are spying on their workforce constantly, some otherwise useless brat is likely to be watching for you to make the slightest error, or stop somewhere for an extra pee or somewhere where they sell a decent bacon buttie, and said brat can’t wait to log it as another misdemeanor, which will then be questioned at debrief
There are still good jobs out there paying top money for reasonable workloads and up to a point if these high payers spy on you 24/7 and want to employ more chiefs than indians, well the extra pay offsets that, and these companies don’t suffer this driver shortage, you can put up with a lot of ■■■■■■■■ when your average hourly rate across the board is getting on for twice the norm.
Also there are still some smaller family type general haulage outfits about too, who whilst not being in a position to match the best for pay, still run things as old school as they can, spec proper lorries for their drivers and leave them to get on with their work without the spying, they don’t struggle to recruit cos they don’t have trouble retaining, as i said for many drivers money isn’t the be all and end all.Companies who complain about driver shortage should look at why they find themselves in this position, it might not just be the money.
Juddians post here is spot on and sums it up well.
Its usually the companies spouting corporate ball ■■■■■ like ‘customer priority logistics ect’ jargon that treats drivers akin to a slave as well as wanting to spy on them with cameras and tracker.
Smaller family run co’s with a decent fleet and a wage big enough to put a pie on the table are the ones where vacancies rarely come up.
In Espana there isnt a shortage of drivers as the unemployment rate is higher and co’s here take the cream of the crop that dont rely on a sat nav that as well as drive can do repairs to keep a truck rolling but still pay a decent wage…
“Employers wanting people with HGV licences to work 15 hour days for a lower hourly rate than my 18 year old son gets for mopping floors can’t find any takers”.
Nothing to see here folks, move on.
At a previous job my boss told us regularly that drivers were 2 a penny. The problem started when we were leaving quicker then he could recruit. The week I left 3 others did as well out of 25 or so drivers that becomes a massive problem quickly.
They put our money up but all that did was slow the turnover a minimal amount as everyone was looking for another job. So throwing money at it didn’t solve the problem.
My company Agro Merchant (Sawyers) have struggled with recruiting sufficient drivers over a number of yrs for various reasons.
1.Young drivers not willing to part with £3k for training up.
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“Aul boy” PT drivers not doing DQC.
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Fridge work and the 24/7 nature of drops/collections getting boats.
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Speed cameras hammering drivers for 46mph in 40mph!!!
On Wed 1st Feb the drivers are getting a pay rise which is LONG overdue and will be 20% (Inc fuel/paperwork/sickness/non accident bonus £50wk) and not a typo TWENTY %!!![emoji41]
This will put us at top of driver payment “league” in Nl but still prob slightly above average just taking in all of UK take home wages wise for trampers.[emoji52]
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Lucy:
Afternoon all, t’is I, Blaggy McBlagFace aka “that bird what keeps posting on here begging for info”…Dead simple one this time, but I think you’ll like it…
It appears there’s a shortage of drivers. Whether that’s a shortage of “decent” drivers, experienced drivers, or drivers in general is another debate for another time, but talking to operators (and that’s something I do a lot of these days) they definitely can’t get the staff they want and need.
So… What happened? Why are people leaving the industry quicker than others are joining it? Where did it all go wrong in your view?
Enjoy!
Perhaps if operators took the trouble to browse through forums like this one they would soon learn what is wrong, however it is easier to bury their heads in the sand and blame everyone else for their woes.
There are some really good points being made here about the differences between what operators - and employers associations, for that matter - seem to think is the problem, and what’s REALLY the problem.
I’ll hold my hands up here and say that when I packed up at the end of 2014 it was after many years of fighting to stay in the truck despite an MS diagnosis, because in my mind I needed to work as much as I could while I was still able. 8 years after that little bombshell was dropped on me I finally realised my disease was progressing faster thanks to the stress and hours, and my “work to the max” philosophy was backfiring, big time.
Fast forward just over two years and I’m making a living out of what was previously a hobby - a smaller living, but that’s my choice, I could chase down enough work to match my trampers wage if I wanted to, but I’d rather have the shorter hours. I’m fitter and healthier than I’ve ever been in my life because I have time to pursue my favourite sport, and I’m wondering why the hell it took me so long.
The best thing about my change of career is something I’m still trying to get used to. These days I get spoken to like the adult that I am. Says it all really, doesn’t it? 
There is definitely no shortage of drivers but more to the point there is plenty of drivers who actually pay to put goodies like light bars on trucks they don’t own at their own expense and have the money deducted from their wages and for that reason these clowns will never get a pay rise but just keep the rest of us down who are trying to progress. Recently working for a local haulier found out its only *£8 an hour and like many companies around me the rate ain’t much different. There will never be a shortage because of this attitude from drivers who think its more important to have the most lights on the road rather than a decent wage
colin.f.whitetrans:
There is definitely no shortage of drivers but more to the point there is plenty of drivers who actually pay to put goodies like light bars on trucks they don’t own at their own expense and have the money deducted from their wages and for that reason these clowns will never get a pay rise but just keep the rest of us down who are trying to progress. Recently working for a local haulier found out its only *£8 an hour and like many companies around me the rate ain’t much different. There will never be a shortage because of this attitude from drivers who think its more important to have the most lights on the road rather than a decent wage
So how do you explain stagnant wages in the 99% of companies where the drivers don’t buy light bars?
There’s a shortage of fair and reasonable employers who don’t take the ■■■■ out of drivers.
The outfit I work for are quite happy not to pay me for exceeding my contracted hours and when I am lucky enough to get paid, it’s the equivalent of £7.16 per hour.