Driver Shortage

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
21

You are aware that transport costs are a small part of the overall price of products?

Prices are falling for a variety of reasons and the main impact is reduced profits. Look at your favourite company, Tesco for example.

There isn’t a shortage of license holders and some idiots will work for peanuts but I do think this number is decreasing. The reasons why I’m not sure. I don’t believe it’s people actually switching on and refusing to work for pennies for daft hours. I think it’s just there are more employment options available recently in other industries that are just as easy to obtain.

22

simple economics. supply and demand. if there was a shortage wages would be high. wages are not high so there is no shortage.

23

It’s a bit more than that. If there wasn’t a shortage of manual workers - we’d not have immigrants unchecked coming into this country. If we didn’t have immigration - we’d have a labour shortage, since the top jobs have had it cushy over the years, leaving manual worker’s wages behind. Now you’ve got 3 bedroomed semis out of reach of anyone earning less than Cameron in far too many areas, not all in the South of England even.

There’s empty properties in some areas - but no jobs there.

Work puts up house prices, house prices draw in more immigrants, immigrants keep the wages down, low wages keep working people in the same place for longer. The same people in the same areas for long enough eventually bring prosperity - but not for around another generation as of yet.

Ask yourself this question: "What were you doing for work, rest, & play 10, 20, 30, and 40 years ago respectively…

10 years ago I was working 5-6-5-6, avoiding voting for Blair, and earning pretty well.
20 years ago I was happy to have a job, as there was a recession on. I was in the right place for that time.
30 years ago I was at college doing Chemistry, Physics, and Computing - but totally skint.
40 years ago I got badly sunburned in the summer, was practically eating ladybirds every step I took that same summer, and was in the final class of Junior school with a great maths teacher who got 27 of us out of a class of 36 through the 11-plus… Happy days. :slight_smile:

The relevance is that you think times are hard when you’re living through them, and then look back on the good old days when things get even worse in the future… What makes us feel “Worse off”? - Relative poverty. If the people around you get to do, buy, and go places you still can’t afford - then that pretty much guarantees that you’re not going to be happy with your lot…

Life is 90% luck and 10% working towards something. Of the luck, most of it is just good or bad timing that decides what kind of luck you get. Property buyers in the mid-80’s did well. Buyers in 1990 got killed. Buyers in 1995 did well… and so on… cycles.

This round of austerity has lasted a bit too long though, because this time around it’s touched far too many industries, and far too few of the business services sector… :frowning:

24

trk78:
simple economics. supply and demand. if there was a shortage wages would be high. wages are not high so there is no shortage.

Is there such a thing as simple economics or is economics simplified to make a point. Thats what is being alluded to here.

If the labour market is reduced to two variables price and volume it is simple. In the real world the market is made up of an infinite number of factors that differ by individual and employer. Not all can be quantified but definitely come into play. It is also incomplete to have a discussion without defining the market by region or skillset. A discussion about the whole HGV labour market is very general with the obvious regional variations and jobs of varying skill requirements.

To say wages would be high if there was a shortage is vague, after all what is high £25k £35k £45k.

In my opinion the word shortage is used in these discussions in the wrong context. The shortage is at a price level where drivers are unwilling to supply. The employer seeking labour is stuck to this price by the price he can receive for supplying the service. Whether this is their own fault for getting the contract by cutting the price, or unreasonable practices from customers (supermarkets with government approved monopoly is another discussion).

With the free movement of labour in europe and the government able to encourage people to come to the country in a genuine skill shortage (HGV driver is not on the list) there cannot be a shortage of labour as such.

What can be seen is a shortage of wages/conditions to balance the market. When there is big demand (Xmas) the labour moves to the wage leaving those who cannot raise there wage and stay in business without drivers.

The other factor that has to be considered is that demand varies at different times of the year, creating the zero hour/agency market. November demand levels may create a shortage, but that is not the case in Jan/Feb.

Until the transportation cost market sorts it self out, getting away from the race to the bottom this debate about shortage will continue to resurface.

Markets are supposed to be efficient, whether they are is the source of much academic debate. Not seen an answer as of yet and they have been at it for years.

Calsdad … BSc(hons)Econ.

25

kjw21:
You are aware that transport costs are a small part of the overall price of products?

I haven’t got a scooby

kjw21:
. Look at your favourite company, Tesco for example.

Zb tesco!!!

trk78:
simple economics. supply and demand. if there was a shortage wages would be high. wages are not high so there is no shortage.

+1

26

Pimpdaddy:
I haven’t got a scooby

pimpdaddy:
Zb tesco!!!

pimpdaddy:
+1

Did you just indadvertantly post lines from your CV old son? :laughing:

27

James the cat:
Did you just indadvertantly post lines from your CV old son? :laughing:

Wtf is a cv pops?[emoji23][emoji23]

28

Pimpdaddy:

James the cat:
Did you just indadvertantly post lines from your CV old son? :laughing:

Wtf is a cv pops?[emoji23][emoji23]

Do you know how old I am?

29

James the cat:
Do you know how old I am?

You just called me son lol

30

Pimpdaddy:

James the cat:
Do you know how old I am?

You just called me son lol

It’s a nice polite pejorative expression. I keep those in a silk lined box for special occasions :laughing:

31

James the cat:
It’s a nice polite pejorative expression. I keep those in a silk lined box for special occasions :laughing:

Ooh well I’m honoured, makes a change from all the stick I get. [emoji23][emoji23]

32

kjw21:
You are aware that transport costs are a small part of the overall price of products?

Prices are falling for a variety of reasons and the main impact is reduced profits. Look at your favourite company, Tesco for example.

There isn’t a shortage of license holders and some idiots will work for peanuts but I do think this number is decreasing. The reasons why I’m not sure. I don’t believe it’s people actually switching on and refusing to work for pennies for daft hours. I think it’s just there are more employment options available recently in other industries that are just as easy to obtain.

You’re trying to educate pork explaining thing to them pal! :laughing:

33

Winseer:
It’s a bit more than that. If there wasn’t a shortage of manual workers - we’d not have immigrants unchecked coming into this country. If we didn’t have immigration - we’d have a labour shortage, since the top jobs have had it cushy over the years, leaving manual worker’s wages behind. Now you’ve got 3 bedroomed semis out of reach of anyone earning less than Cameron in far too many areas, not all in the South of England even.

I don’t see how this follows. Immigrants have been drawn in, for a while, because they have been able to undercut local manual workers. Either by working under inferior terms, or by being relatively higher-quality workers, or both. Temporary migrants have also been able to undercut by not having to meet the cost of living their entire lifecycle here - not having to support families or buy homes at British prices, for example.

We have also seen a lot of de-mechanisation, or re-manualisation, of late. There is no shortage of manual workers.

34

calsdad:
In my opinion the word shortage is used in these discussions in the wrong context. The shortage is at a price level where drivers are unwilling to supply. The employer seeking labour is stuck to this price by the price he can receive for supplying the service. Whether this is their own fault for getting the contract by cutting the price, or unreasonable practices from customers (supermarkets with government approved monopoly is another discussion).

The market answer then is for profits to evaporate and for firms to fold or merge, until customers cannot get their goods moved without paying the price demanded by the remaining hauliers.

Until familiar hauliers start disappearing, to wring out the excess of them, there will be no correction in haulage prices.

35

You can only undercut manual workers wages if you’re on benefits…

It stands to reason that if you are paying rent or a mortgage of £800pcm these days, then without benefits you’re going to need to take home around £2000 a month from your job MINIMUM in order to get by.

No one is supposed to be paying more than 40% of their takehome pay on accommodation. You even get disqualified for a mortgage if you are deemed to “not be able to afford the payments”.

Yet, without housing benefits - which those between living wage and good wages do not get - housing eats up a lot more than even a mortgage would take right now.

The government would have done better by making any income from taking in a lodger tax free. That way, any would-be BTL landlord is forced to live with their tenants in some shape or form - severly limiting the landlord from “pyramiding” properties so that the price remains forever out of reach to those who’d actually LIKE to live in said properties.

Remember once upon a time when it was automatically thought of that a “Landlord lived on the land they rented out to you”■■?

None of this ponzi scheme where multiple blocks of rent money are sent uphill to the eventual top-tier owner of the property being let… Allowing billions to exit the country into the pockets of already wealthy foreigners effectively getting paid all that housing benefit money or over-priced rents.

Bring in rent controls for all properties the landlord is not resident at - and sort this whole issue out overnight. :bulb:

The economy would do well out of it too, as ordinary workers suddenly find they’ve got some money left now that rents are set to reasonable levels of no more than 40% of average local takehome pay.

If you work in Macdonalds or a supermarket that pays the same rate nationwide - rents in that area are going to get hammered by the introduction of such laws.
The London rental market is highly liquid. It will stand any hammering upon it by such rent control introductions. The only losers will be the millionaire landlords who now find that they can only make “some” profit rather than “huge” profits from prostituting out their own trappings of wealth to sponge the nation’s benefits otherwise…

36

WELL SAID WINSEER :sunglasses: :sunglasses:

Good to see there are folk about who see the links that make the chains or poverty for ordinary English working folk :sunglasses: :sunglasses:

37

Rjan:

calsdad:
In my opinion the word shortage is used in these discussions in the wrong context. The shortage is at a price level where drivers are unwilling to supply. The employer seeking labour is stuck to this price by the price he can receive for supplying the service. Whether this is their own fault for getting the contract by cutting the price, or unreasonable practices from customers (supermarkets with government approved monopoly is another discussion).

The market answer then is for profits to evaporate and for firms to fold or merge, until customers cannot get their goods moved without paying the price demanded by the remaining hauliers.

Until familiar hauliers start disappearing, to wring out the excess of them, there will be no correction in haulage prices.

It’s one answer. If you look at the profits that the big players make they are low now. Have been for a while. For non specialist services these big players set the market price. Over supply would be characterised by lots of trucks and drivers sat doing nothing. There aren’t many signs of this. It is complicated by short term hire and short term labour that means capacity can be quickly altered.

I believe the driver shortage is firmly not in quality full time jobs, it is in short term roles and crap jobs. There was the usual panic pre xmas where some try and snap up quality drivers on full time roles, and some come up with a premium pay scheme for xmas to get the best agency drivers. Since xmas there has been no good full time positions on offer, and very little on agency apart from poor rate crap.

I think within the market the story of the shortage has caused companies to tie in drivers on good packages. These drivers are happy and not moving. This has caused less good agency work. All the stuff on indeed and universal jobmatch etc at this time of year is the dross that doesn’t pay enough for anyone to take seriously. The shortage is of drivers willing to do low paid crap work, and new entrants having to pay over £3k for the privilege.

38

Again, its all immigrants fault thread, undercutting the local population :unamused: ?
Yet all Eastern Europeans I know there(4 different families in the countryside+few singles in London) make more then then average salary or twice that.One of them is employer(restaurant owner) himself and employ’s local people. Another one is construction crew chief in Maidstone, over 50G hometake. An engineer and accountant family in Sheffield…
One of the London gals is 28 year old who happens to work in the city council, another one is PR manager, I don’t know how much money they make, but I doubt they work for peanuts.
And of course a dear friend of mine, Polish lorry driver in the Midlands who also makes good money.

All of the above are well integrated, some are British citizens, 3 of the families have kids born there.
You see not all EE are benefit scroungers, who live 10 i 2 bedroom sending their money home!

P.S. The restaurant owner brother in law is ADR class 2 drivers who takes home min of 2000 a month, that’s good money if you live in countryside Scotland I think.

39

trk78:
simple economics. supply and demand. if there was a shortage wages would be high. wages are not high so there is no shortage.

+1

40

Winseer:
You can only undercut manual workers wages if you’re on benefits…

On the contrary, you can undercut them by working twice as hard, or by accepting insecure contracts, or by just being more adaptable and self-disciplined. Or, as I say, by not living your entire lifecycle here, so you don’t have to support your family at British prices.

And hear hear your point about rent controls. The free market always falls down at the interface with the private sphere - that’s why we have Sale of Goods Act, it’s why we have employment rights and unions (both ailing of late), and it’s why we used to have rent controls, because otherwise people get shafted in transactions that they have to make and cannot decline (we all need food, housing, and a livelihood).