LIBERTY_GUY:
Even those that don’t work in the haulage industry, will have been bombarded with media headlines of ‘driver shortages’. Probably only taking a real interest when it mentions shortages on the shelves.
There are probably tens of thousands of drivers like me out there, that hold full hgv licences, got cpc and tacho cards etc, but perhaps working in other roles, semi retired, or indifferent to the whole idea of driving a truck again.
Now I keep getting texts off an outfit called Staffline, offering me up to £1300 week working for DHL, which I can guess straight off is just total tosh and simply unachievable. So okay, purely out of curiosity I look into this some more into the driver job scene and put some searches onto Indeed and a couple of other mainstream job sites and I simply don’t see all these jobs that desperately need filling. There the usual rigid work crud out there for the likes of Bidfood, Mueller and Pallet deliveries that appear with such regularity over the months and years, common sense tells you to simply avoid. Then there are the artic jobs that are either tramping or stupid o clock start times ( 2am - really!) and say what you will, some people do have homes, families and want some sort of life outside of work.
I won’t bring money into the equation, other than to say I did see one class two driving job being advertised, direct by the company rather than the agency at just £9 hour. That put it at just 11p hour above minimum wage, or about 50p day in your pocket after tax. However what I WASN’T seeing was a plethora of job vacancies for drivers, be it 7.5 tonners, rigids, or artics? If there IS a driver shortage and presumably hauliers have lots of vehicles sitting unused in yards everywhere, how come they aren’t advertising these jobs and really pushing hard to get people?
I get these texts as well.
The calculation seems to be based on 6 shifts per week working at the Sunday Night rate, Ltd rather than PAYE, with another rate mentioned for “accruing holiday”. I didn’t think that one could quote a rate that included “rolled up holiday pay”, but then again - few back me up on me saying “Water is Wet” as a statement of fact, I’ve found.
There are attempts out there to recruit full timers BUT these are at vastly inferior rates as to those already available on Agency these days.
The full timers, especially the unionized full timers - resent very much that some upstart agency can come in doing the same job alongside them for near double the hourly rate they get - but that just makes the “shortage” even more accute, as agency drivers driven away by the clandestine actions of the local unionized workforce - creates a mass of hours that need to be covered, and guess what? Many a Union will insist on local agreements such as “Not allowed to work more than 10 hours on nights” meaning that 12 hour night shift - then doesn’t get covered, unless they can find a thick-skinned agency (likely a foreigner) who’ll take the flack, come in, and do the job for £20+ per hour, or whatever.
Just as politics have become more and more polarized these past five years or so - so it is the same with the workforce “Them and Us” now refers to “Members vs Agency” rather than “Members vs Management”. Not surprising when so many “Members” ended up being booted upstairs, and becoming “acting” managers, perhaps because they came off driving due to one-too-many prangs… No dismissal for these types, but woe betide anyone who challenges their hallowed position as “Elevated Failed Driver” !
Thus, the hourly rate for agency only - keeps on rising.
I see Aldi are pushing up their new recruits’ full timer rate - but only by a little bit…
Let’s see how much success they have…
I can’t say I’m tempted as yet… 
