Is there OR Isn`t there A DRIVER SHORTAGE 
Well Tony I reckon you are going to receive an awful lot of replies to your post with a lot of different opinions!!
I was on the phone the other day to a driving agency and I asked this very same question and pleaded with him to give me an “honest” reply and not the usual bull. He hesisted and said (quietly I might add!) that in his opinion there was a shortage of experienced drivers at certain times of the year, but generally he didn’t really think there was. In fact he advised me to try and find a job by contacting companies directly - he felt I stood more chance! If you take into account the general laws of “supply and demand” I would be be strongly inclined to the view that there is no real shortage - certainly nothing as severe as is being constantly talked about. If there was this “real” shortage then such pathetic wages (I have seen many many jobs being offered for Class-1 drivers at five pounds odd an hour) and such long hours would not be so “normal” in the transport sector. A lot of people are being sucked into parting with large sums of money (myself included) to gain LGV licences on the belief (mistakenly) that they will have no problem gaining well paid work once they get their licences. The two biggest gainers from this “myth” are the driving schools and employment agencies!! A friend of mine (experienced class-1 tramper) has sent out loads of application forms for other jobs since well before Xmas and has not yet had a single reply! I personally have sent out a lot myself and have had little or no response. Before I embarked on gaining Class2 and 1 myself I phoned a few driving agencies to try and find out if it really was worth my while investing loads of dosh, blood, sweat and tears to gain these licences. Both agencies told me that it certainly was and they both implied that once I had a Class-1 they would be biting my arm off! Not one of them told me the real truth! Caveat Emptor (Let the buyer beware)!!!
Anyway that’s my humble opinion.
Tom
In a word Tony NO .
I will however repeat what someone else said on here the last time this subject was raised and that is there are too many crap jobs about that noone wants its not a driver shortage.
I have class 1 and could walk in to half a dozen jobs next week if i chose to but dont want to do it, howeve i think there may be a LITTLE bit of a regional shortage in places.
I agree with the above postings.
There is no driver shortage, there is a shortage of experienced drivers willing to drive trucks for low wages, long hours, unreasonable working conditions (lack of overnight facilities etc) and unreasonable mangement attitude. 
Just seen an advert on the JobcentrePlus website for a Class-1 driver in Liverpool for £5.50 an hour.
Just seen an advert in my local paper for a part-time cleaner in a local school - £5.45 an hour.
!!! Nuff said !!!
Tom
There IS a shortage of drivers.
Just look at all them jobs being advertised for £5ph (Class 1) and you can see that there are no drivers for them!!! I wonder why?
As already stated there is not a shortage of drivers just a shortage of well paid, good driving jobs.
If all drivers refused to work for less than £7ph (days) then we might start getting somewhere with pay!
Eventually the employers will either have to put the pay up! or employ one of the individuals from our new EU member states who will be flooding this country looking for work. Remember our government was the only one who decided to give these people full EU rights from day one. Every other EU Country put up measures to protect their people from them!!!
Welcome to the UK - Home of Cheap Labour, Long hours, Short holidays and Exceptionally well paid politicions!
I have to say,after reading a lot of turn it on a tanner Tony’s posts,that I 100% agree with him on some of the crap pay that is going around.
For christs sake,the year is 2004,and Great Britain is supposedly the 4th largest economy in the world.Pay of £5 pounds per hour is a downright insult.If you are a boss and that is all you can afford to give your workers,I would say to you,'You try and live on this money and pay a mortgage and feed the kids,and take the wife/girlfriend out shopping or for a meal on this pathetic load of ■■■■■■ Yeah the greedy sods won’t do it.And don’t give me the 'Oh,I’m running on a shoestring budget.If you cannot afford to pay a decent wage,then you DO not deserve to be in business.I was at school in the sixth form,10 years ago and I was earning £3.85 an hour riding a pizza bike ,part time to give me some money.Theres obviously something very wrong there!
I feel that I was conned into getting my licence now.You hear all these stories bandied about that when you get your class 1,you have made it.The big money waits.What a crock of crap.The same for all this 2 Years experience 'Its the insurance mate,nothing we can do '.Why aren’t you told any of this at the start. 
Yours truly disullusioned.
Just a few points:
To earn decent money driving you will have to work 50 hours minimum.
You need experience, not just handling of the wagon but loading, and knowing where places are and how to get there. You can’t buy this.
To get the experience start by driving small vans and work up.
Once you have some of this you will find employers will be keen to offer you work at reasonable money, in the S.East I would expect £7 minimum.
There is a shortage of drivers, pay has gone up, admittedly not fast enough, but it also explains why there are so many agencies.
The EU has allowed workers to move freely for some years, and I’ve yet to meet a Portugease or Greek driver working for Tescos, Eddie Stobarts or Securicor.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
Merlin
The shortage is of drivers prepared to work for brain dead TM’s.
My last lot employed someone who thought he knew it all, but got lost on the A17 & felt the quickest way back from Manchester To Norwich was M62, M1, A14, A11!!, & would then accuse us of long detours when we went on single carrigeway A roads as they are not as fast as motorways & duel carrigeways.
I got fed up of thier attitude of you’re only a driver we know best,.OK thier knowing best could earn us hours extra most days, but to accuse us of milking the hours when we had to put up with thier [zb] , just got to much.
If its all about pay then why do some poor payers have so little trouble keeping & recruiting, whilst some good payers always seem to be advertising ?.
(edited for langauge - AndyM 
little stars = no no)
The company I work for is constantly looking to recruit but do have a minimum standard of requirement that several candidates fail to meet on assessment. We are using agency staff every day and some of these guys are almost full time but they prefer the life as an agency driver.
The pay, well just under £8 an hour for the first 40 then time and half for the rest of the week and double time for bank holidays. 4 weeks holiday on joining and an extra day per year served up to 5 weeks after 5 years.
They have started training some of our existing people (office and warehouse) because of the problems getting people of the required standard.
merlin:
The EU has allowed workers to move freely for some years, and I’ve yet to meet a Portugease or Greek driver working for Tescos, Eddie Stobarts or Securicor.
Some of the agencies that supply to us have Dutch and German drivers on their books. In fact there are more EU drivers than female or ethnic group drivers sent to us but thats another topic in itself.
I dont really know if there is one or not Tone, theres some saying yes, and some saying no, my opinion though, is that there is a shortage for certain jobs that nobody wants, and a shoratage in certain areas of the country wheres a lot of motors and a low population. I do know someone that advertised 2 jobs for 3 months and got no replies, but theres probably a reason for that!
Mal.
I agree with Mal. The shortage is in certain areas that have low unemployment and are areas with a lot of distribution centres. I am working on agency and have had no problem with work. I know many places that don’t have enough drivers, but they seem to be more the big companies who pay more, than the small family firm who pay less, but are more in touch with thier drivers.
Whilst I’ve always said in the past that there isn’t a driver shortage, thinking deeper there could well be one in Northants, Herts, W Mids, Wilts, London etc., but I think that many long-standing drivers have got fed-up of the hours, pay, conditions and jacked it in to take up other careers. Who can blame then ?
I have to say that prior to Tony’s incessant (no offence, just seemed the right word) posts about the hours and pay I never really compared my hours:pay ratio against what I could get in another line of work, eg office, for 40hrs. It is quite eye-opening although I wouldn’t go as far as saying I do 2 weeks work for 1 weeks pay in another profession; that’s a bit of a random statement imho.
Like many, I thoroughly enjoy driving about, truck or car, although not sitting in traffic and that kind of offsets the pay to a degree.
I can’t deny that I’m beginning to struggle money wise now, having being used to £430 take home every week but finding work in this vicinity paying the same for 60ish hours isn’t happening but I don’t want to be on agency long-term either.
I found myself having a lengthy natter with a NWL driver a few weeks ago and the subject came round to pay and comparisons were made to McDougals staff which was alarming. Well over a G to get your class 1, then get yourself experience all on your own, be responsible for your own load and security, the weight - likely to be in excess of 40 tonnes and to cope with long hours and deal with all the other numpties on the road, work on your own initiative etc all for roughly the same per hour money (£5-6) as a McDougals worker… ■■ It’s all wrong.
We should refuse to work for less than £10/hr days but it will never happen. No point moaning about it because I’ve got no intention of doing anything about it unless everyone else joins in which also will never happen.
In a strange kind of way, I’m sort of looking forward to the WTD; hopefully it will put the bad-paying companies out of business and it will only be the big players who can afford to pay £10/hr+ to keep/afford drivers. Drivers just aren’t going to be able to stomach an average loss of 12hrs o/t pay every week.
I think the agencies are going to make an absolute mint when the WTD comes into effect.
Meanwhile, life ticks on. 
There are people posting here stating they think £7 an hour for driving in the south-east would be acceptable. 
that is PEANUTS. I swa an advert for Aldi supermarket last year and they were advertising for shop staff in GLASGOW at £7.65 an hour, and I know that drivers in that part of the world struggle to get £7 an hour
Alot of guys I speak to are driving 44 tonne trucks for LESS money than KIDS EARN TURNING BURGERS
I DEFY ANYONE TO MAKE SENSE OF THAT These are FACTS SIMPLE AS THAT
You Looked at YOUR payslip latley.
THEY ARE TAKING THE ■■■■.COM
Tony just out of interest, what do you do for a living and how much do you earn?
Gurner:
Tony just out of interest, what do you do for a living and how much do you earn?
Think he works as a recruitment head hunter for a burger king company and he must be payed on commission 
The way I see it, is that there IS a shortage of drivers…simply because the average pay and conditions are poor, so we’reall correct.
I can see the reasoning behind Jobberdun’s statement “If all drivers refused to work for less than £7ph (days) then we might start getting somewhere with pay!” but we all know there are muppets out there who do work for £5.50 an hour and knacker the industry up for the rest of us.
Overworked, undervalued and underpaid, thet’s how I see myself and my workmates, I do this job because I used to love it and unless things improve over the next five or ten years I’m afraid I’ll go the same way as Jammymutt…“off the road!”
This is the reason why there’s a shortage of drivers, there’s also a shortage of doctors, nurses and police, why? The same reason, dissilusionment within the workplace, not feeling valued, not paid a decent rate (coppers aside!) long hours, management with half a brain, I could go on…
I usually do…
Rant over, Thanks for your time.
It’s good to be back!
Dazza
Dazza:
we all know there are muppets out there who do work for £5.50 an hour and knacker the industry up for the rest of us.
Dazza
Now hang on here, these “muppets” are more often than not new drivers who need experience and the only jobs available for them are the jobs with low pay because they can’t walk into a £9 p/hour class1 job.
I am about to leave a job with a removal firm. They pay £6.25 p/hour. For this you have to drive your wagon up and down the country into residential areas where there are cars parked both sides in narrow streets (not so easy in a 38 foot rigid with a 7foot overhang at the back to knock mirrors off cars with tail-swing) and then spend up to 8 hours loading/unloading heavy furniture. Now that’s working for your money. Yet drivers still do these jobs. In my case it was to get experience. So you’ve got to start somewhere.
And besides, what would you rather be doing? Flipping burgers or driving?
If it’s the latter, sod off and flip burgers and stop griping about money. At least you have a job. If you think you are being shafted for the work you do, go find a better paid job.
Rant over