No mention of your hatred towards axors on that post m8,whats up 
45000 shortage of drivers, if an extra 45000 were trained and put to work in these vacant positions, wouldn’t we just have 45000 agency / self employed drivers out of work?
Don’t think so as the figures include all C+E drivers with DCPC including agency and occasional drivers that just move their own stuff.
So they are saying there’s 225,000 (45,000 x 5), shifts a week that aren’t being covered and the trucks are left sitting in the yard?
dieseldog999:
to me they would be 2 completely poles apart ways of earning…full time direct employment is type 1…agency is the exact opposite irrespective of how long you have been with your respective agency.when on agency work the logic is how long can i drag it out for,and how much of a beancounter can i be. someone in fulltime work for a decent employer is more likely to be a bit more hands on with reality and get the job done.fulltime with a tosco type job would be similar attitude to agency beancounting.the way i would look at it is by asking yourself this question,if you personally were running a smallish fleet of trucks,then would you want to employ, eager hands on type drivers who would at least try and wangle things to suit whether it was absolutely 110% by the book legal or otherwise when its not exactly a big deal,or,some tosco type ■■■■ plobber who will drag the day out into oblivion and use any excuse to defect a truck and basically work to rule wherever possible. if it was your own business,then the choice to me would be a no brainer if i was being honest.
There’s the rub. If we all had decent employers in this business - we’d all be really loyal to them, and every job would be a dead man’s shoes job. Hmm. Are we sure that actually ISN’T the case?
…at least among those full timers who are secure enough in their job that they categorically say they’d “never work on agency”…?
As for the beancounter ideal… That would probably apply equally to all of us - should your employer be on the lookout to cutting your pay at any point. In agency, contractor, Ltd, or anything else “temp” - You’ll be paid less if you carve the job up - so you don’t. In full time on the other hand, if you work 40 hours but there’s actually enough work for 50 hours per driver per week - how many say "Hey lads - Fancy 10 hours a week contract overtime?" - or do they just say “Sorry lads, I’ll give you an “inflation only” pay rise, but I really need you to work for 50 hours from now on as well…”
If one really is lucky to have a job that has regular overtime available, and a decent wage to start with for a proper jobsworth’s 35-40 hour week - then good luck to you…
That was what we had and lost in my last full time job after all… Too good to last alas…
There is certainly a shortage in good drivers.
People who want to do a day honest work.
Not in every region and not in every kind of work.
I think multi drop suffered the most, as people rather sit on their arse, than open doors / curtains 15-18 times a day.
Cities are general easier to do, rural work is very difficult to cover, as the roads need a decent driver who doesn’t wreck the equipment, who can handle thing on their own, who is not scared to get involved and get their hands dirty!
I know of many so called E E drivers (mainly Polish) who are willing to do this and take home around 26-31k.
I also know many Brits steering wheel attendants who pull their nose up for that kind of money and work.
If Carlsberg made a job, there would be plenty of drivers.
Big V8, all luxeries on board, a nice girl/ bloke doing your paperwork and navigation. When you arrive at your destination, they are waiting for you,the security bow for you Master driver, unload you in 5 minutes. No back load as you would’t be home in time for your dinner. 35 hours for 52k. ( and a loaf of bread would cost £300 to cover the cost 
)
Never will happen in my life time!
Big Truck:
robroy:
Coffeeholic:
Ok, right, but apart from the aquaducts, and the roads, what have the Romans ever done for us?How do you take a “dump”
side of the road like everybody else 
jimmy page:
Big Truck:
robroy:
Coffeeholic:
Ok, right, but apart from the aquaducts, and the roads, what have the Romans ever done for us?How do you take a “dump”
side of the road like everybody else
caledoniandream:
There is certainly a shortage in good drivers.
People who want to do a day honest work.
Not in every region and not in every kind of work.
I think multi drop suffered the most, as people rather sit on their arse, than open doors / curtains 15-18 times a day.
Cities are general easier to do, rural work is very difficult to cover, as the roads need a decent driver who doesn’t wreck the equipment, who can handle thing on their own, who is not scared to get involved and get their hands dirty!
I know of many so called E E drivers (mainly Polish) who are willing to do this and take home around 26-31k.
I also know many Brits steering wheel attendants who pull their nose up for that kind of money and work.
If Carlsberg made a job, there would be plenty of drivers.
Big V8, all luxeries on board, a nice girl/ bloke doing your paperwork and navigation. When you arrive at your destination, they are waiting for you,the security bow for you Master driver, unload you in 5 minutes. No back load as you would’t be home in time for your dinner. 35 hours for 52k. ( and a loaf of bread would cost £300 to cover the cost
Never will happen in my life time!
Most sensible post on here.
seth 70:
No mention of your hatred towards axors on that post m8,whats up
I thought we were on about a so called shortage? Most drivers like axors, I can’t see why or how they would affect or cause a shortage:lol:
Give me a rural run anytime over town/city, I grew up and live in the countryside. Trouble is rural tends to be crap pay, motorway trunking is boring as hell but with the right firm pi55 easy, more money, and fairly predictable hours unless they decide to dig up yet another section of the M6 
Never needed my ADR, Tanker or FLT tickets and only needed my HIAB one for a couple of days about 4yrs ago.
I have the experience and tickets to do skitter boxes but the days I get a green shower from ■■■■■ old ewes in the upper decks or crushed/kicked by some Limmy steer, then cleaning the decks out after unloading are long gone, been there… 
I love working with livestock to the point where I’m about to put a small hen coop/run in the garden and would add a couple of Zwartble ewes if I thought I could get away with it but loading other peoples’ stock, I don’t think so
What did the Europeans say when UK drivers found driving for Italians Germans Dutch companies etc was a novelty,but cutting their jobs to ribbons so they where not week ended away,and unable to spin their weeks tales of woe to their mates in the pub.
Shoe on the other foot and its not liked
so from the bits on here I have seen is despite the job being far far easier than it ever has been every driver think they should be paid more? the average round here is 25-35k for class 1 which is not a bad wage for unskilled labour, and no matter how much we all think it should be skilled its not.
and have a look at the training a train driver goes through before being classed as trained it doesn’t compare.
war1974:
so from the bits on here I have seen is despite the job being far far easier than it ever has been every driver think they should be paid more? the average round here is 25-35k for class 1 which is not a bad wage for unskilled labour, and no matter how much we all think it should be skilled its not.and have a look at the training a train driver goes through before being classed as trained it doesn’t compare.
But how many drivers only work 35 hours for there £25000 if they work 70 hours then thats only £12500 for the average workers week maybe not so good.
Train drivers do have maybe 18 months training but only work a 35 hour week for depending on company upto £50000.
yes but a large % of hgv drivers wouldn’t pass the train driver testing that’s why they have better rates and terms etc.
don’t get me wrong I am all for a liveable wage but no matter how you dress it up driving a hgv is unskilled, the dcpc has done nothing to affect this and until it becomes a skilled job wages wont increase.
I left driving last summer for a low grade signallers job on the railway so not skilled, for a 35 hour week I earn £440.95 or £22929 per year today I am doing rest day work 4 hours for £94.49 and i do 1 sunday per month overtime for £226.97.
This shows just because your unskilled wages don’t have to be low, only thing wrong is the job will finnish sometime this year when the box closes.
war1974:
don’t get me wrong I am all for a liveable wage but no matter how you dress it up driving a hgv is unskilled
It actually falls well within the remit of semi-skilled. Unskilled work requires absolutely no qualifications whatsoever nor any level of judgement above very basic stuff.
It could actually be argued that in most cases truck driving falls into the skilled category as it is an autonomous job that requires knowledge, critical thinking and making key decisions. Skilled labour refers to labour that requires workers who have specialised training or a learned skill-set to perform the work. These workers can be either blue-collar or white-collar workers, with varied levels of training or education.
What we don’t fall into is very highly skilled or professional.
well how did I know you would think its skilled conor.
its not skilled other wise taxi drivers/ delivery drivers would be the same (they train to take a car test after all).
its unskilled not semi skilled not skilled (don’t get me wrong I know a load of people who couldn’t reverse a van into a space yet alone a hgv)
but look at all the entry lists for working abroad driving isn’t on many if any at all as its not skilled.
war1974:
well how did I know you would think its skilled conor.its not skilled other wise taxi drivers/ delivery drivers would be the same (they train to take a car test after all).
its unskilled not semi skilled not skilled (don’t get me wrong I know a load of people who couldn’t reverse a van into a space yet alone a hgv)
but look at all the entry lists for working abroad driving isn’t on many if any at all as its not skilled.
+1…never in the history of mankind on this planet,any planet in our galaxy,or indeed any solar systems as yet undiscovered has an agency driver been called upon to make critical thinking or key decisions as mostly there employed by tosco type beancounting plobber companies where every drop and route is risk assesed beforehand and printed out so the driver needs to put as much intake into doing the job as a kfc cabbage.in tosco,then any intuition for getting on with the job is actively frowned upon and discouraged.its as near to army life as possible…you do it exactly as instructed and do not ever ever think for yourself for an alternative meant to carry out the menial task you are given.they work the same as supermarkets etc,split the job down to the simplest level so that anyone is capable of following the instructions.obviously theres a degree of some kind of skill in getting from point a to point b without taking the mirrors off,but nomore so that a car driver does with their respective licence.in reality its unskilled,and at best semi skilled though thats the debatable factor.crawling out of your pit in the middle of the night to do some plobbing agency trunk or shop delivery cannot be classed as skilled the same as heading off with a couple of drops somewhere in the country.the descriptive word is experience,as thats what makes the difference in the standard of most truckies weeks work.i.e dont hit the bridge,or get stuck down a lane.
Wow, so many so ignorant of what they do on a daily basis. You’ve been downtrodden and derided so long you don’t even recognise what you do on a daily basis.
I used recognised definitions of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled to determine which category of job it was, not just what I thought it was in my own mind.
Trunking as the Irish idiot states is within semi-skilled. A lot of other types of haulage come into skilled.
Key decisions, something which places you in the skilled category, cover things such as deciding what to do in the event of a road closing incident for example. The decision you make has a direct impact on the profitability of your company for that job. The majority of truck driving jobs are autonomous because once you’re given the keys and the job for the day you’re expected to get on with it and deal with whatever arises as you go about your daily work.
As for the Irish idiot, still an idiot…