And it’s going to ruin Christmas!
Skip to about 40 minutes.
She didn’t understand that people don’t want to pay 3k to qualify a job where you work 13 hours+ per day for minimum wage and with poor facilities!
They’re in denial.
Long days, low pay, expensive to get a licence.
Rates will have to rise soon, recently read that the Polish drivers were fed up because the devaluation of the pound meant their money was worth less in euros back home. PMSL 
If I wanted to go back on the road today it would cost me over £500 for medical, didgicard and DCPC. These costs will involve working over 80 hours to pay for them. Then you find that companies want you to have driven HGV within last six months, probably an insurance requirement.
If there was a genuine shortage then there maybe some incentives, rather than hurdles, to actually return to driving.
turbot:
They’re in denial.
What, swimming with the Crocodiles [emoji246]
martinviking:
turbot:
They’re in denial.What, swimming with the Crocodiles [emoji246]
Like it 
Captain Caveman 76:
And it’s going to ruin Christmas!Skip to about 40 minutes.
She didn’t understand that people don’t want to pay 3k to qualify a job where you work 13 hours+ per day for minimum wage and with poor facilities!
Obviously bookings at the driving schools have dropped, a seasonal thing I believe.
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There is a shortage of drivers.
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HGV driver pay rates have been falling for several years.
Does not compute.
There can’t be a driver shortage, P and H are still managing to get shelf stackers with a class 2 licence. Or they were at Pear Tree an hour ago.
Harry Monk:
There is a shortage of drivers.
HGV driver pay rates have been falling for several years.
Does not compute.
It does, if you distort the market by flooding with cheap labour, lessen standards required to get behind the wheel (Eg. Halfway House, 9 points, recently sacked drivers all welcome) and of course - you’re pumped full of the notion that there IS a lack of “full time” contracts about that means you should be grateful for each and every minimum waged hour you can muster…
In actual fact, there is a profit/loss curve for those drivers that have families where one is actually better off ON minimum wages (maxed out tax credits) but one must then rush across the £8.00ph-£10.00ph range, because the driver earning say, £8.10 at Stobarts is no worse off than the Sainsbury’s driver getting £9.50, because the tax credit taper is such that the extra hourly rate is all lost away on the reduced tax credit payment once the tax and NI has taken it’s third out of one’s wages!
(Wages might have gone up since I looked 18 months ago mind… I’ve just completed my first year back on full time - already! Sheesh - wherediditgo? 
When wages upwards of £10 an hour become the norm, and you see 8 or 9 ads in the local paper, I’ll believe there’s a shortage. Until then I’ll carry on treating any BBC “news” with the contempt it deserves
OVLOV JAY:
When wages upwards of £10 an hour become the norm, and you see 8 or 9 ads in the local paper, I’ll believe there’s a shortage. Until then I’ll carry on treating any BBC “news” with the contempt it deserves
There’s plenty of double-digit hourly rates available even for C2 work in London and the South East right now.
Here and there are the “laggard” firms that continue to get away with sub-£10ph wages right now - but their days must surely be numbered, especially as we’ve got firms like Asda (Erith) offering £18ph for working over Christmas, and RM offering £16 once you get past the 12th week (hard to do, I know!)
Meanwhile, the £12.85odd I’m on for driving a fridge about - will do for now. 
AVOID agencies who insist you go on their umbrella/self-employed deal.
I have only done PAYE, and any hourly rate as PAYE is FAR better than the same rate on “self-employed” when you get no holiday pay, sick pay, and have to provide receipts for everything down to having a ■■■■…
Must be half a decade since I was on below £10/hr. Currently on £11 and 33 days holiday.
Agencies offering those rates aren’t uncommon. As are jobs not advertising. I’m getting at the constant advertisements, as these are the vacancies the so called shortage is measured by. When the regular adverts are offering double digits I’ll take notice
OVLOV JAY:
When wages upwards of £10 an hour become the norm,and you see 8 or 9 ads in the local paper , I’ll believe there’s a shortage. Until then I’ll carry on treating any BBC “news” with the contempt it deserves
^ This
The ads providing a choice of local,distance or international work new drivers welcome.Together with a government statement that it now sees road transport as important as rail and will end its anti road crusade accordingly.Starting with the good will gesture of allowing the use of red diesel and a move towards the use of LHV’s.
Carryfast:
^ ThisThe ads providing a choice of local,distance or international work new drivers welcome.Together with a government statement that it now sees road transport as important as rail and will end its anti road crusade accordingly.Starting with the good will gesture of allowing the use of red diesel and a move towards the use of LHV’s.
Red diesel= rates reduced correspondingly to match the cheaper cost of diesel
LHVs= fewer drivers required to move the same amount of freight = lower wages.
Harry Monk:
Carryfast:
Together with a government statement that it now sees road transport as important as rail and will end its anti road crusade accordingly.Starting with the good will gesture of allowing the use of red diesel and a move towards the use of LHV’s.Red diesel= rates reduced correspondingly to match the cheaper cost of diesel
LHVs= fewer drivers required to move the same amount of freight = lower wages.
Or more demand for more cost effective more efficient road transport,more productivety,more profitability = more revenues available to pay more wages.On that note Scandinavia isn’t exactly a no hoper environment for driver opportunities.Give it pre tax fuel costs I’d suggest that it would probably be just about as good as it gets. 
Harry Monk:
Carryfast:
^ ThisThe ads providing a choice of local,distance or international work new drivers welcome.Together with a government statement that it now sees road transport as important as rail and will end its anti road crusade accordingly.Starting with the good will gesture of allowing the use of red diesel and a move towards the use of LHV’s.
Red diesel= rates reduced correspondingly to match the cheaper cost of diesel
LHVs= fewer drivers required to move the same amount of freight = lower wages.
Nail on the head. Customers are street wise now. They analyse how the job is being done and pay a rate accordingly. When splitter trailers came about, it pretty much doubled the rates. You’d have London surcharges, personal effects surcharges etc, and you could easily pick up £600 for 2 boxes from nw10 to tilbury. £1k if you’d tipped them both first. Now the lines know how it happens, and 2 tips 2 loads would see you scrape half that ten years later
As many of you said the pay doesn’t reflect what you pay to get ur licence and what really narks me are these firms that take an hour off you for your break each day when most of the time you can’t leave the truck it’s not like we work in office and can just nip out for an hour is it? Luckily I get paid for my breaks
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I maybe wrong but did the recent Uber court case not say that their drivers had to be paid for their breaks in which case surely that would apply to drivers of HGV’s as well, TBH if your boss can’t afford an extra 45 minutes a day then he is hardly worth working for.
EU & their Directives.
I’ll say it again… BREXIT Bring it on!..