So how quiet does it go in january and feb then? When does it start to pick up again?
You may call me daft but i will be handing my notice in at my current job within the next few weeks once i have passed my CPC mod 2 and 4, unless you there is a general concencus to wait! my plan is to leave and then head for the agency.
Working one or two days a week is not possible for myself as my shifts are all over the place at work anyway and i wouldnt want to get a bad name at the agency and then sit around waiting for calls!
So its all or nothing!
So my questions… How quiet does it go? Is it next to impossible to get work and should i wait until it gets a bit busier, and if so when does it get busier?
Virtually every agency driver in the land will be sitting at home between Christmas and Easter, and will consider themselves lucky if they get one day’s work a week.
The thing I’ve found over time is that you just never know. It depends on so many things, not least how good your in with the agency. A couple of years ago I gave up a good paying job to back to driving, company went ■■■■ up after a couple of months so it was back to same job with different firm. A year later I jacked it in to on agency, got some good work out of them including what I’m doing now. As it happens the company I got sent to we’re looking for a couple of full timers, now, as it was in November I thought it would last until January then I would be told, I’m sorry but work has dried up. I’m still there a year later as the work is not seasonal ie not food based or holiday based. When I went to ASDA on agency I spoke to some of the other lads that had been going in on agency for over 5 years, all year.
I do know one thing, nobody will come to your house to ask you to work for them, get signed up as soon as you can and get out there looking. You just never know.
This year, all year has been terrible on agency, however the year before I was busy all year including the usual quiet period, the year before had its usual quiet Jan and Feb with 2-4 days per week average, I can only echo what was already said, you really never know, too many variables.
depends who you are working for (agency) and how they treat their drivers
NAS recruitment, 2 days a week
Target, 5 days a week
ADR, 5/6 days a week
i have been getting calls and txts from about 4 different agencies trying to get me booked up through to christmas at higher rates than i am on now but im looking at the big picture and staying put. the rate would have to be doubled to compensate for having nothing after xmas and thats not going to happen. short term greed is not going to win me over for the simple fact that an extra 100 a week over 2 months is not going to make up for walking out on 400 a week between january and april. im sticking to the longer term prospects and let the others be misguided by greed. more work for me when they go back with their begging bowl and get told to go away
Almost certainly, but how it’ll affect you will depend on a few things.
The year before last I was working on a long term job covering for a guy who was off after an eye operation. I ended up doing it for a year or so. It was a good paying, easy job which kept me working the through inevitable drought from New Year til the run up to Easter. The year before the agency I was with and where I was well in were keeping me busy, probably at the expense of other less popular drivers. They were ringing me on Thursday afternoon saying ‘We’ve got this this this and this for next week. Which do you want.’ It was quiet but I still getting 3 or 4 days a week, often including well paid weekends so I was doing ok.
Last year was the worst I’ve had in over 20 years in agency work. I wonder how much that had to do with the companies criteria for allocating jobs in quiet times. I didn’t meet them so was doing well to have one day a week for two weeks followed by 1, then 2, then if I was lucky maybe three 1, 0 etc. In the end I got sick of that and went and got a full time job for the first time ever
The point is it can all depend.
If you go now you’ll have no trouble getting enough work but come New Year you’ll be very quiet, unless you do a good job of getting your feet under the table between now and then. If a regular client decides they like you and ask for you by name every other day you’ll be ok. No guarantee it’ll be busy at all though. You might do better staying where you are for now and think about moving in the run up to Easter.
Why dont you wait and get on for someone full time? If you’ve just passed personally i think that is the way to do it, they’ll take you on knowing that you’ll need help at times so should look after you.
Harry Monk:
Goldfinger:
Who do you think will be recruiting early 2013?
I’m hoping to be able to take on a driver around March/April 2013 although they will have
to be away for several weeks at a time.
For me, I’m wondering if there maybe something better out there for me. At our place they’re slowly drowning us in ‘company procedures’ - common sense is not allowed - it’s our way or no way.
They think it’s making them even more money but it doesn’t, more like the total opposite! It makes the job take longer, which in turn then costs more to do the job. Yet they wonder WHY the job take so long!
The muppets in the ‘Ivory Towers’ as we call it, haven’t a clue, they don’t realise the crap we go through just to get the job done!
All they see are numbers on a screen /piece of paper, yet still want more out of us.
All fair comments, so its hit and miss then really. Hopefully as i live so close to trafford park i may have some slighty better odds…
I bet Harry has had an inbox full of Pm’s regarding his possible vacancy!
Traditionally 1 week either side of January 20th is when the dead season starts.
because thats when joe publics credit card bills usually (or used to) land on the doormat post Xmas & they faint at how much Xmas has cost them, and they have to rein in the spending to pay said bills. Then you have to take into account all those summer Holiday ads that entice the public to book their annual 2 weeks in the sun. So thats another chunk of money they wont be spending in the shops, and again the “January sales”.
Depending what date Easter is, it can be a very long stretch for agency drivers, and the transport industry to wait for thing to pick up.
This is when a lot of agency drivers who have been wise enough to stash the cash through the year, take an extended holiday in sunnier places
I also haven`t mentioned the effect the chinese new year can have, when China shuts down for 2 weeks & the workers go home to their families. then aproximately 2-3 weeks after then, the lull in containers arriving from China hits the UK
I’m an agency driver but am in the very lucky position of being in the same placement for approaching nearly 2 years. If I was you, I wouldn’t hand in my notice from a full time job to go chancing your arm on agency work, you will get promised the earth, but very rarely will they deliver. If you’ve got plenty of cash in the bank to tide you over when the agency work may dry up, then by all means take the chance, but I’d rather leave the money in the bank and stay in full time employment.
Saaamon:
I’m hoping to be able to take on a driver around March/April 2013 although they will have
to be away for several weeks at a time.
Why is that if you dont mind me asking?
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Because I’ve been talking to somebody about maybe doing a roadshow next year and they tend to go away for fairly long periods at a time. I did think of doing it myself but that might cause me problems running the administration side of things, so if it does come off I might take somebody on for the duration of the job and send them away on it.
It will go to real bad schite next year…Triple dip recession will be firmly established.
My advice…Buy a couple of guns, stock up on tinned food and learn how to skin and gut mammals and fresh water fish
Cannibalism may not be for you, but if cooked properly, it will taste like roast pork
I predict this Christmas will be the quietest in living memory, last year I spent hours outside stores waiting to tip most of which ended up in the compactor as waste, the continuing rise in the cost of living leaves everyone with less disposable income, Easter of this year was like an average Friday of 2006.
I would say 2 years before an upturn and that’s me being optimistic.
