don’t be afraid to share your views
“Our sector has a massive skills shortage” [emoji23]
Is that management speak for most lorry drivers are forkin useless■■? [emoji848]
i lost interest at the third line with the usual buzz word description…id take a wild guess that its basically meaningless pish to anyone driving a truck?
nomiS36:
“Our sector has a massive skills shortage” [emoji23]
Is that management speak for most lorry drivers are forkin useless■■? [emoji848]
Nah, they’re talking about the route planners 
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There’s a very very simple way of telling if this shortage is real or not…
All they gotta do is look on certain company websites who have been touted as the GUARANTEED ones who will employ a guide dog to drive for £7ph.
Now ask why in less than 3 month these firms are now asking for 2yrs exp…
Definitely a shortage [emoji38][emoji38]
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I think the argument is that there are more older drivers and they think there will be a shortage as and when they retire. They are saying doom is waiting around the corner.
However this doesn’t really matter. As it takes just a few weeks to train a class 1 driver. Unlike say a Doctor where you are looking at the best part of a decade.
Why don’t they do what Bus companies do? Train folk to drive the vehicles and then bill them if they leave too soon? If there was a genuine shortage that is what they would be doing.
As things stand all the need to do is send a bus over to Poland and you will have a bus full of drivrs when it gets back. So they don’t need to train people. They don’t need to increase wages. And they don’t need to improve working conditions. With a little luck this will all change at the end of the year but I’m not holding my breath.
In a real shortage the newly passed will be immediately offered a a full time perm job by a number of employers - that is not happening
I posted something on a similar topic not so long ago and included a link to the supposed “driver shortage” of 2015. The article was filled with doommongering about empty shelves at christmas. It never happened. From memory there is a surplus of several hundred thousand hgv license holders who arent in employment. That’s not a driver shortage, that’s a decent job shortage.
Instead of degrading terms and conditions so only the desperate and the foreign want to drive lorries, turn it into a job worth having and people will be queueing round the block to get/use a license.
I would suggest there is a shortage in regional areas. It might not be widespread across the UK but in the North and the Midlands where most central distribution areas are I think if you speak to most employers in those areas they do have a difficulty in employing and retaining drivers, same story with agency’s.
If you get a job with no experience and a couple of days into it your other personality decides you don’t fancy it for whatever reason then you might struggle at this time of year, people do talk.
Roger- in my experience getting a start on class 2 & 1 was not difficult after passing my tests.
sammym:
I think the argument is that there are more older drivers and they think there will be a shortage as and when they retire. They are saying doom is waiting around the corner.However this doesn’t really matter. As it takes just a few weeks to train a class 1 driver. Unlike say a Doctor where you are looking at the best part of a decade.
Why don’t they do what Bus companies do? Train folk to drive the vehicles and then bill them if they leave too soon? If there was a genuine shortage that is what they would be doing.
As things stand all the need to do is send a bus over to Poland and you will have a bus full of drivrs when it gets back. So they don’t need to train people. They don’t need to increase wages. And they don’t need to improve working conditions. With a little luck this will all change at the end of the year but I’m not holding my breath.
Nail on the head there. Im sure this driver shortage myth was proved to be bs by the government when haulage co’s were pleading poverty for training drivers up. Something along the lines of way more licence holders than people working in the industry shows people with licences are choosing to work elsewhwere.
nomiS36:
“Our sector has a massive skills shortage” [emoji23]
Is that management speak for most lorry drivers are forkin useless■■? [emoji848]
How come so many drivers end up being taken off driving - to become managers then?
I remember the days when “being made a manager” was the pathway to higher wages, promotion - and a comfortable retirement, cushy gold-plated pension included!
Nowadays - it’s a demotion aint it?
ROG:
In a real shortage the newly passed will be immediately offered a a full time perm job by a number of employers - that is not happening
…but “6 points OK” - is commonplace on job adverts these days!
Is it REALLY still more expensive to insure a new pass than some clown who’s been done twice already?
sammym:
As things stand all the need to do is send a bus over to Poland and you will have a bus full of drivrs when it gets back. So they don’t need to train people. They don’t need to increase wages. And they don’t need to improve working conditions. With a little luck this will all change at the end of the year but I’m not holding my breath.
Replace bus with plane, and Poland with the Middle East, and you wont go far wrong after the end of the year…