A new trucking apprenticeship for youngsters is being developed to plug a shortfall of hgv drivers about 50,000 jobs in the industry need filling as older drivers retire according to newspapers,the RHA has welcomed the move,the catch,these youngsters will still have to pay £1,300 to get the licence,most youngsters won’t want to know,where is the incentive to do it,and again no guarantee of a pass,another stupid government scheme that will probably go up the wall
There is no shortage.
IF there was a shortage in drivers the rates for o/d would be through the roof, and there not
burnley-si:
IF there was a shortage in drivers the rates for o/d would be through the roof, and there not
Why would a company who has a fleet of wagons where their main business isn’t haulage want o/ds?
Where I’m at they run an apprenticeship scheme for drivers. They started it last year after realising how old many of their drivers are and how hard at times the agency they use had in meeting demand.
Don’t see why any driver shortage is the governments problem, to be honest.
The industry should be taking responsibility for sorting the problem themselves. More company training schemes/academies & better pay and working conditions for drivers.
What we don’t need is more dregs off the dole pile being gifted HGV licenses to earn low pay, it only accelerates the race to the bottom.
Instead of coming up with meaningless, hare brained, ridiculous schemes, they should be asking WHY the older drivers are not readily being replaced with younger blood, and addressing THAT problem.
If there genuinely is a shortage, that is a symptom of the disease not the disease itself. 
Sort that problem out and the new drivers will appear readily and voluntarily.
I remember the old scheme that they ran about 15 years ago. We had a couple of “trainees” and I took one out for a few days. He openly admitted that he had zero interest in becoming a lorry driver and that he was only doing it because the Job Centre had told him to,
Conor:
burnley-si:
IF there was a shortage in drivers the rates for o/d would be through the roof, and there notWhy would a company who has a fleet of wagons where their main business isn’t haulage want o/ds?
Where I’m at they run an apprenticeship scheme for drivers. They started it last year after realising how old many of their drivers are and how hard at times the agency they use had in meeting demand.
Thought that was for there own staff working in the factory who wanted to change jobs, It’s not open to anyone
As a noob wishing to get my tickets at the grand old age of 32 I’m disgusted that funding/apprenticeships/well to be honest any chance to get a license isn’t open too all
ages through someone like the RHA as i don’t really see it being governments responsibility to get people into the trade, its merely their place too get wages/standards/and the availability of work sorted by growing our need for this line of work.
And as for government offering training to wasters for free…SOMEONE PLEASE LINK IT TOO ME as by Christ I ain’t a waster…(employed too lol)…and would RIP their arms out of their sockets for the chance to get mine for free!!
Sadly I’ve gotta do my obtaining the hard way, but its in my blood trucking so by god somehow
I’m gonna get me tickets, be nice if they were for free though 
Sorry for my post, I’m a noob so please discount my op in this forum and i will return to my relevant forum sub section 
A somewhat more intelligent post than some penned by the so called ‘well experienced driving Gods’ on this forum ! 
Benjie83.
For genuine working blokes like you mate there are no freebie training schemes, those are reserved for people who’ve proved, by being unemployed for yonks, that they don’t want to work.
It has always been thus, i got made redundant twice within 3 months in 1981 when we had a mini recession, had a total of 8 working days out of work IIRC, signed on each time to get me stamp paid and by Christ wasn’t that a barrel of laughs for the uninitiated (think i got the sum total of £14 out of the system, married sole earner kids mortgage etc, they’ll probably demand that back plus interest when i retire), anyway i knew that some tech courses were being offered and i’d always fancied doing TV engineering stuff like that, thought i might get me own repair shop in due course, when i enquired they looked at me like i’d got three heads or was plain stupid, probably right too, apparently you needed to be a doley for 6 months before you could qualify thereby proving what a good work ethic you had and the positive result the taxpayers investment would have. 
Suggest you wear your baggies showing at least a 3" crack of your arse, don’t shave for a month, fall out of your pit with the lark at 11am, amble about puffing a reefer under your hoody, mumble a barely coherent grunt when spoken to and they’ll probably fall over themselves to offer you every course under the sun.
Hope you get your tickets in due course mate.
Come on now, we are talking about a different class of person doing the complaining about a lack of drivers. The type whose ■■■■ doesn’t stink and who has his head so far up in the clouds that when he’s looking down his nose at the rest of the world, he can’t see what is right in front of him. Hence he looks to the old boys’ network in government to sort the problem for him. As a big time donator to party funds he reckons that this is his right. The Party fearful that it might not have enough money to guarantee full services from its advertising agency, decides to let the tail wag the dog.
These so-called apprentice schemes are nothing more than a stitch-up for young drivers so they can be brought in to do a full-time job without being recognised as ‘proper’ employees and without being rewarded with the proper wage. Personally I do believe there is a shortage of drivers for some of the larger firms, but they are not interested in putting up rates and it won’t happen. Instead they are scheming up ways to take advantage of people as per the above. And let’s be honest, there’s no such thing as an apprenticeship in driving. It is not a trade that can set you up for life; they are not teaching you anything. It just makes you in to a minion with no prospects except to continue doing the same job that you were doing on day 1.
Only a very small percentage of young people would go for this volunterly because if they did have an interest in trucking they would be already doing the job! Our place is doing something with the Job Centre, 6 people have come through them and are having all their licences paid for with Scania Grimsby however out of those 6 only 2 are worth a dam, the other 4 couldn’t give a toss.
Don’t tell us any more Radar for crying out loud, if my Mrs spots it that’ll be another bloody monitor bricked, they can’t ■■■■ our money up the wall quick enough on worthless people/causes/countries.
Juddian:
Don’t tell us any more Radar for crying out loud, if my Mrs spots it that’ll be another bloody monitor bricked, they can’t ■■■■ our money up the wall quick enough on worthless people/causes/countries.
With that lot, you have to wade through a river of zb just to find 2 people who actually want to work, one guy only showed up for one day before jacking it in!
Radar19:
Juddian:
Don’t tell us any more Radar for crying out loud, if my Mrs spots it that’ll be another bloody monitor bricked, they can’t ■■■■ our money up the wall quick enough on worthless people/causes/countries.With that lot, you have to wade through a river of zb just to find 2 people who actually want to work, one guy only showed up for one day before jacking it in!
Bugger me it just gets better…
burnley-si:
IF there was a shortage in drivers the rates for o/d would be through the roof, and there not
I think it’s fair to say that in some parts of the country, most noticeably the Midlands, there is an increasing shortage of drivers. Wages in that part of the world seem to start at around £11 an hour, compared to the £7.50 an hour on offer here in east Kent. As an owner-driver myself I haven’t seen any increase in rates, although neither have I seen a drop in rates which I would have expected to see given that my diesel costs have fallen by £200 a week compared to 12-18 months ago.
I do expect there to be an increasing shortage of drivers as we old boys retire in our droves, the job has little appeal for the “new blood” who ought to be coming in to the industry. It has changed beyond all recognition in the time that I have been doing it and if I was in my mid-20s again, there is no way I would consider becoming a truck driver.
I just see this latest initiative as a feeble attempt by the haulage industry to persuade taxpayers to pay for the unemployed to be trained to do a job which they have no wish to do, rather than respond to market forces and tell their customers “Sorry but we have to put the rate up to pay to train new drivers”.
The only link I can find to this is the Sun website. 
My beleif is that the haulage industry needs to get it’s head out its arse and sort out recruitment and retention of drivers themselves instead of expecting the tax payers to sort it out.
But if its true that those on the scheme still have to find £1300 that might mean those doing it are actually interested as opposed to being sent on it just to get them off dole queue, although apparently there will be 2000 “work experience” places for the unemployed whatever that means.
And the RHA are still complaining about the £1300 saying that youngsters won’t be able to pay it, then perhaps if their members think a candidate if suitable they should pay it.
Juddian:
Benjie83.For genuine working blokes like you mate there are no freebie training schemes, those are reserved for people who’ve proved, by being unemployed for yonks, that they don’t want to work.
It has always been thus, i got made redundant twice within 3 months in 1981 when we had a mini recession, had a total of 8 working days out of work IIRC, signed on each time to get me stamp paid and by Christ wasn’t that a barrel of laughs for the uninitiated (think i got the sum total of £14 out of the system, married sole earner kids mortgage etc, they’ll probably demand that back plus interest when i retire), anyway i knew that some tech courses were being offered and i’d always fancied doing TV engineering stuff like that, thought i might get me own repair shop in due course, when i enquired they looked at me like i’d got three heads or was plain stupid, probably right too, apparently you needed to be a doley for 6 months before you could qualify thereby proving what a good work ethic you had and the positive result the taxpayers investment would have.
Suggest you wear your baggies showing at least a 3" crack of your arse, don’t shave for a month, fall out of your pit with the lark at 11am, amble about puffing a reefer under your hoody, mumble a barely coherent grunt when spoken to and they’ll probably fall over themselves to offer you every course under the sun.
Hope you get your tickets in due course mate.
Cheers fella, its just sole destroying to hear people given an opportunity are so fudgekin selfish and arrogant too waste it, I’m lucky I’m working…not great but its a job…and am currently frantically saving, begging, borrowing and accepting with great respect and appreciation any penny I get as my family like me appreciated the help the state does give those who truely need and or deserve it, but would I expect it or squander it…like bollox, so we as a family will do our best to pay it ourselves as A, its not the states place and B we have had a hand in past so we will do our best to replace it with the tax we all pay and the HUGE amount of tax i will pay once I’m driving that yellow scanny in the show us your truck thread
With pipes an lights that shiny its gotta be worth 70k a year too pilot it, Lotta tax for the suits…
But alas I do wear a hoody, I ain’t shaved this week as the paper boy will look older if I do, and yes I’ve done some grunting this week, she were asleep as I done it…only time I get any nowadays what with kids
Reckon I’d qualify in jobbie with my 75% criteria match?
It should be done through RHA and for folk who want it!!!