Well I was having a butches look around the net these past few days and all I see is certain web pages and site, banging on about the fact that there is a shortage of qualified HGV drivers… yet I can’t see this to be true at all… I mean, Ive had my licence for over 2 years … have applied for countless number of jobs and nothing…
No one wants to give a newbie a chance even if he is 35 and 18 years of road driving experiance… so whats its all about
Do you read Truckstop News? The same crap was spouted on the front cover in this month issue. The best yard stick you can use is the Job-Centre web site IMO. I search it everyday even though I’m lucky I suppose and have a full-time job. Where do you live I’m asking because Ive applied for a job in Warrington that is perm full-time not bad money and they are looking for other drivers, may be worth a shot for you?
mattcollin:
Do you read Truckstop News? The same crap was spouted on the front cover in this month issue. The best yard stick you can use is the Job-Centre web site IMO. I search it everyday even though I’m lucky I suppose and have a full-time job. Where do you live I’m asking because Ive applied for a job in Warrington that is perm full-time not bad money and they are looking for other drivers, may be worth a shot for you?
truckstop news is given away, totaly free, it is paid for by the advertisers, who advertise to train you to become a truck driver & earn 40 k per year 
the job centre website is used by agencies to advertise non existant jobs in the hope of getting your details, so that in the unlikely situation that a job becomes available they already have a punter ready & able,
they are all bulls excrement 
Funny that, if I was an employer I wouldnt think of advertising a job totally free nationally with the Job Centre who then put it on the web site for you also for nothing, hmm bull (zb). Dont think so, yes you have point about the agencies advertising on there but most of us know that already. Tell me just where do you look for jobs when and if you need one, I’m interested to know ? Word of mouth is it, friend of a friend, not what you know who you know? Well the original poster hasnt yet managed to get his foot in the door somewhere so I suppose he doesnt have that many options open to him to find work at the moment apart from looking at web sites like the Job Centre.
You also seem to be saying that I have said Truckstop News is a place to find a job, I didnt read what I have said instead of spouting off saying that the two points I have made are bull. They arent. The Job Centre web site is a start for looking for a job for most people so why making a sweeping statement saying its bull (zb)?
I dont understand it the industry has some great employers, great rates of pay and great wages.
There are hauliers out there with P cabs crying out for trampers to sleep in laybys 5 nights a week some of them offering 10 hours pay for 15 hours work excluding breaks and poa of course.
Some of the lucky drivers will get a DAF if they are REALLY lucky and tip off the card for a good boss.
There will NEVER EVER be a driver shortage as there will always be the im all right Jack lot who will work for peanuts and not care about anyone else !.
I did think the E.U. import of drivers might be a good thing as lotsof U.K. drivers will not obther with the industry but since the Brazilians and Columbians started coming over it seems anyone will do the job for next to nothing.
jammymutt:
but since the Brazilians and Columbians started coming over it seems anyone will do the job for next to nothing.
Please tell me you are kidding…
Matt, I only ever applied for 2 jobs in a jobcentre… One was as a nightwatchman (didn’t get the job) and the other was for a skin and hide firm (21, no experience… didn’t get that one either). I did apply for one in the local paper once and got that, but that was as a yardman in the local garden centre, not as a driver.
Every other job I have had has been word of mouth, or presenting myself at their door, and that has continued even over here.
There is nothing better than showing willing, and going to sign on and browsing the cards there doesn’t really do that. But if you are out of work then you have to do that as well… 
Swampey:
Well I was having a butches look around the net these past few days and all I see is certain web pages and site, banging on about the fact that there is a shortage of qualified HGV drivers… yet I can’t see this to be true at all… I mean, Ive had my licence for over 2 years … have applied for countless number of jobs and nothing…No one wants to give a newbie a chance even if he is 35 and 18 years of road driving experiance… so whats its all about
Driver shortage is a myth. Our depot is looking to recruit and they are doing so by asking for recommendations from it’s existing workforce, they are not going to be advertising externally.
Personally I’m {zb} off with the clowns 
but if you need a foot in the door and can swallow any amount of patronising BS and false promises then it is a start.
Where are you based Swampey?
Hang on though. Driver shortage as in people with a licence starting work, or shortage as in people who will still be doing it in 10 years time…
See, I think there is a difference. When I passed my test (Yeah, I know, had to dodge the horses and carts it was so long ago) I was one of maybe 8 or 9 in my town that did so within a year. I am the only one still doing the job, and I have done well out of it. All the rest of them packed in within a couple of years.
It is all well and good to say there are lots of people out there with a licence and looking for work, and I have no doubt that times are tough right now, but once you are in, are you going to stay in, get the experience and then be able to go on to the good jobs when things improve? Because they will improve, and then there will be the whole driver shortage issue again.
bobthedog:
Hang on though. Driver shortage as in people with a licence starting work, or shortage as in people who will still be doing it in 10 years time…See, I think there is a difference. When I passed my test (Yeah, I know, had to dodge the horses and carts it was so long ago) I was one of maybe 8 or 9 in my town that did so within a year. I am the only one still doing the job, and I have done well out of it. All the rest of them packed in within a couple of years.
It is all well and good to say there are lots of people out there with a licence and looking for work, and I have no doubt that times are tough right now, but once you are in, are you going to stay in, get the experience and then be able to go on to the good jobs when things improve? Because they will improve, and then there will be the whole driver shortage issue again.
I got in years ago, and have stayed in, but when do you think things will improve in the UK?
We seem to be in a race to get to the lowest possible wage right now, and have been for the last few years, and, with apologies to orys, the employers are recruiting from the EU and bringing in drivers who will take a lower wage than the Brit drivers in many cases, ie £6.00 and hour for class 1, and that’s across the board, no overtime rates, but it still gives them a better living than back home.
It’s a bit like the Canadians (only one company now) that advertise in the Truckstop papers, if the industry raised the rate in Canada there would be drivers over there working in Walmart, who would come back into the industry.
Swampey, that certain company/website wouldn’t happen to be Advantage (formally Highways who i understand got done for false advertising) who advertise in the Sun all the time ? by the way i’m in the same boat as you, got the licence but can’t get a break on class 1. luckly i’m driving class 2 at the moment so at least i’m racking up the experience of being on the road. anyway good luck with the job hunting.
Mick, you know, same as me, that if a good paying, good conditions job were to come along, you would stand a better chance than the guys on here who can’t seem to get a break into the gig, but then the job you have becomes open and that is where these others get a chance at a start.
When we began driving, we started at the bottom, with the cowboys and shysters. I was lucky in that I only had to work for a dadgy one for a coule of months then got a decent job, but when things went pop in 92 I was the first out and had to find another firm (White fridges near Okehampton) and was back to square one again, running hooky and pushing hard for crap money. But I did it and when the other firm needed a driver again I was straight back with them.
Nowadays, new starters do not have the “advantage” of myriad dodgy buggers who only require a licence and a pulse because they have largely gone to the wall.
When will things improve? When the Government realise what is happening, or when one of the other EU nations actually sinks and the EU becomes a figure of history…
bobthedog:
Mick, you know, same as me, that if a good paying, good conditions job were to come along, you would stand a better chance than the guys on here who can’t seem to get a break into the gig, but then the job you have becomes open and that is where these others get a chance at a start.When we began driving, we started at the bottom, with the cowboys and shysters. I was lucky in that I only had to work for a dadgy one for a coule of months then got a decent job, but when things went pop in 92 I was the first out and had to find another firm (White fridges near Okehampton) and was back to square one again, running hooky and pushing hard for crap money. But I did it and when the other firm needed a driver again I was straight back with them.
Nowadays, new starters do not have the “advantage” of myriad dodgy buggers who only require a licence and a pulse because they have largely gone to the wall.
When will things improve? When the Government realise what is happening, or when one of the other EU nations actually sinks and the EU becomes a figure of history…
I think the government DO realise what’s happening, but are ‘influenced’ by business leaders in ways we are not privvy to, otherwise the farms would not be full of Portuguese workers, RDC’s full of Poles etc , and they (the gov’t) would then have to reduce welfare benefits to force the shirkers back to work.
I have niece who has just had her 4th kid, has NEVER worked, nor is she likely to, her partner has never worked either. They, due to gov’t benefits are part of the reason that we are screwed, but even if they had their benefits cut to encourage them to work, I would rather employ a decent foreign driver than them.
Exactly right. Therein is the rub.
There are very few permanent jobs in Scotland. Everything is through agency. Agency offered me 8.50ph for a sunday. We are going back to the good old days when people used to work on a day to day basis with no rights.
sparewheel:
There are very few permanent jobs in Scotland. Everything is through agency. Agency offered me 8.50ph for a sunday. We are going back to the good old days when people used to work on a day to day basis with no rights.
If you stand together to demand change, then in effect you become a union, and you have to fight on more than one side, as the company owners won’t want to pay more, and the likes of the anti-union posters on here will believe every word of the bosses and will fight against you whilst keeping their own low wages and being ‘grateful’ for a job!
I am against unions with egotistical money grabbing leaders, but see the need for some form of unity in the workplace (at least what’s left of it), BUT it won’t happen for a very long time as there is NO poverty in the UK and the welfare benefits are too good, so we don’t really NEED the jobs.
And if drivers were to go on strike now for more money then a LOT of firms would fold. The industry cannot sustain increases as things are. Now, drivers and operators, the bosses, should be looking at stoppages. Independent action without manager being there beside the drivers would do untold harm.
Maybe the best way to get a job is to go out with CV dressed smart ( taking work clothes just in case ) visit all the transport companies within a 50 mile radius of your house & speak to them in person hand them your CV
Go & register with all the agencies in your area say you will drive a van upwards but call them every few days to see if they have work yep I know it is hard when they all say “NO” as have been there I also know that I prob wont get a driving job within 50 miles of my house
You have to stay focussed & positive not always easy
i recently found a site for self employed drivers , maybe this is the way to go to beat the agency monopoly many companies .
i used to hear lot of smaller haulers complain that many drivers will go through the agency to do supermarket work rather than spend a few days on flats or tippers the only way around it is to get yourself known to thse smaller companies so at lest you get a foot in the door before the agency option is used
looks simple enough
freelancetruckdrivers.co.uk/index.html
MolePower:
i recently found a site for self employed drivers , maybe this is the way to go to beat the agency monopoly many companies .i used to hear lot of smaller haulers complain that many drivers will go through the agency to do supermarket work rather than spend a few days on flats or tippers the only way around it is to get yourself known to thse smaller companies so at lest you get a foot in the door before the agency option is used
looks simple enough
freelancetruckdrivers.co.uk/index.html
Looking at it, a driver has to pay £25 to get himself listed on the site with no guarantee of work.
mickfly:
I have niece who has just had her 4th kid, has NEVER worked, nor is she likely to, her partner has never worked either. They, due to gov’t benefits are part of the reason that we are screwed, but even if they had their benefits cut to encourage them to work, I would rather employ a decent foreign driver than them.
That is the reason this country has deteriorated so much over the past 30 years. How can they live where neither partner has a job? Their kids in turn will also think it’s ok not to work. All this BS about there being no jobs, when I was a youngster with no dependants I was still working 7 days a week, driving and mopping floors at the local hospital at the weekend. At one point when I think about it I had 3 jobs, Driving a forks and running a pallet yard in the day, doing a local HGV trunk in the evening and then mopping the floors at the weekend. When i’d hhad enough of the mopping, I used to go on the agency on the bread class 2 mulit-drop then bang in to Safeway’s on the class 1’s. Couldn’t do it now with the digi’s like. You do what you gotta do to make a better life for yourself. If i’d have had a family i’d probably have had 4 jobs.
I would be drunk with shame if I were living off benefits.