We all have our own perspectives on the driver shortage and I have personally took great delight in telling everyone about the lack of facilities out there and a few other ‘home truths’ they don’t read in their paper, or online news portal. Essentially a broader picture of why so many people actually leave the industry.
The last few days I have been looking at lots of driving vacancies, on many of the mainstream job sites out there. Obviously within my own area of the NW Midlands, which has a lot of industry and some large population centres. Admittedly a lot of those are placed with agencies, but there a few firms advertising directly too.
One of the companies that regularly advertise on there and was advertising class two curtain-sider work at just £9.00 hour a few weeks ago, has realised the seriousness of the driver shortage and now increased the advertised rate to £9.20 hour. I think that sums up the attitude of some hauliers just perfectly. By my reckoning that would be an extra fiver a week in your wage packet after deductions, to appreciate your ‘value’.
Also advertised (unsurprisingly) are the regular vacancies, that even with noticeably increased pay rates, they really struggling to fill. Builders merchants, pallet network, bidfest/brakes type food delivery’s, skip work and bin lorries. All of those have their own unique issues, that simply wouldn’t apply to every driver. They all appear to have staff retention issues and have been advertising forever (or so it seems).
That all brings me back to the original point that some of those driving jobs out there are unpopular vacancies and are ALWAYS going to have a HGV driver shortage.
Wondered if anyone else has any thoughts on this and whether some of the folks investing in HGV training now, will still be doing the job in three years time from now? Especially in view of the fact that many non driving vacancies have also started to increase their rates now, to attract and retain new staff.
Brakes have been posting the same ad since at least 2018 when I first passed my HGV test, to this day. The level of illiteracy in some of these ads (not Brakes but mainly agency ads) is staggering, it’s hard for me to even take them seriously.
On pay, I’ve said it before but if your business model is based on winning contracts by calculating £9 p,h wage cost, then you can’t really afford to up the wages as it’ll eat away at your profit and you end up running a no profit business or even at a loss. If increasing your prices to compensate for the profit loss due to wage increase results in contract waived so you end up with no income at all. In other words if you built a house of cards don’t cry when it falls apart at the slightest wind. These kind of businesses need to fail as they seem to be the ones struggling the most to attract/retain drivers in the best of times.
axletramp:
In a nutshell, there have always been crap jobs and crap firms.
Hence they will struggle to recruit and keep good drivers.
No joke. There’s a reason for the term dead man jobs. The good ones don’t just get advertised out there - you either hear from someone or stumble upon them by chance as they never need to advertise and/or don’t want to attract random people but rather have someone recommended to them by people they trust.
LIBERTY_GUY:
non driving vacancies have also started to increase their rates now, to attract and retain new staff.
My night shift supervisor was telling me,that his daughter had just taken a job at amazon…in the warehouse.
4x10 hour shifts(sun-wed)and double time if you do a 5th shift.
She’ll be on more money than him,if she takes the extra shift.
It’s not diificult to sort the unpopular vacancies from the good ones.
Local building materials/retail/multi drop doesn’t matter what class 7.5t - class 1.
Numerous other types of job in which the role of ‘driver’ is secondary such as warehouse operative/driver etc etc.
As opposed to distance/international trunking trailer/box swaps only.
Or any other type of job in which 90% of the job is driving from A to B preferably the further the better.At which point the ‘experience’ issue becomes ‘important’.
Unlike the ‘unpopular’ vacancies.
Driver ‘shortage’ indeed.
axletramp:
In a nutshell, there have always been crap jobs and crap firms.
Hence they will struggle to recruit and keep good drivers.
What does a firm DO to “recruit and keep good drivers” though, when the moment you try and pay one driver more than another on the same contract - there’s “industrial action” pending?
New contracts vs Old Contracts even for wear-the-shirt full timers - The older contracts tend to be the BETTER ones, with that relationship reversed on agency…
“Old Contract” = “Six points OK” whilst “New Contract” = “Can’t offer you that, sonny - we’d have a walkout!”
Winseer:
What does a firm DO to “recruit and keep good drivers” though,
Well the first thing to do, is forget all the flowery language of ‘prestigious company’, ‘great opportunity’, etc. Just sit down, acknowledge that the job itself isn’t attracting drivers, those that do start leave within a short period of time, then look at what you can do to improve the job itself.
Whether that be reducing the number of drops to a manageable level, ensuring that kerbside drops are just that, not expecting drivers to collect money which in 2021 with instant payment technologies via smartphone is a joke anyway, and that customers that are constantly giving your drivers grief are spoken to (or dropped). With no drivers, you have no business. The logic can’t get any simpler than that.
axletramp:
In a nutshell, there have always been crap jobs and crap firms.
Hence they will struggle to recruit and keep good drivers.
No joke. There’s a reason for the term dead man jobs. The good ones don’t just get advertised out there - you either hear from someone or stumble upon them by chance as they never need to advertise and/or don’t want to attract random people but rather have someone recommended to them by people they trust.
My final job before retiring,was THREE years on Agency before being offered a permanent job,that was the only way to get a job, as it was a "dead mans shoes"or retirement job.
axletramp:
In a nutshell, there have always been crap jobs and crap firms.
Hence they will struggle to recruit and keep good drivers.
What does a firm DO to “recruit and keep good drivers” though, when the moment you try and pay one driver more than another on the same contract - there’s “industrial action” pending?
New contracts vs Old Contracts even for wear-the-shirt full timers - The older contracts tend to be the BETTER ones, with that relationship reversed on agency…
“Old Contract” = “Six points OK” whilst “New Contract” = “Can’t offer you that, sonny - we’d have a walkout!”
Eh? What “industrial action?” . Ive been driving 15 years, worked at a hundred firms and never met a union driver. The bosses do whatever they like.
You really believe there are bosses desperate to pay more but being thwarted by the unions? Give over!
SHYTOT:
So what do you people think is a FAIR rate for
7.5 Drivers
Class 2 Drivers
Class 1 Drivers
This should be interesting
Class 1 £20…
Class 2 £25
7.5 £15
OT applicable after 8 hours not 40. Weekend rates at Sat time and a half and Sunday double bubble. Night rates higher obviously.
Interesting.
Does that suggest you believe the often non-driving labour required of class 2 drivers is more valuable than the greater skill-set of class 1 drivers?
SHYTOT:
So what do you people think is a FAIR rate for
7.5 Drivers
Class 2 Drivers
Class 1 Drivers
This should be interesting
Class 1 £20…
Class 2 £25
7.5 £15
OT applicable after 8 hours not 40. Weekend rates at Sat time and a half and Sunday double bubble. Night rates higher obviously.
Yup, though disagree with the 1/2 discrepancy, but once this false shortage has done whatever its designed to i have a nasty suspiscion the slide back to the bottom will begin.
Already seeing some agency lads not getting full weeks in.
As for unpopular jobs, well hard graft or filthy or awkward or even specialised skilled jobs have often paid well over the normal rate for a given area, or basically they wouldn’t get any bugger to do it, this is not a new thing and it won’t ever change because human nature being what it is most people want and easy life given the choice if there’s one going for a similar rate of pay, and who would blame them.
I’ve done exactly that myself swapped serious graft for an easier job with shorter hours.
ETS:
No joke. There’s a reason for the term dead man jobs. The good ones don’t just get advertised out there - you either hear from someone or stumble upon them by chance as they never need to advertise and/or don’t want to attract random people but rather have someone recommended to them by people they trust.
My final job before retiring,was THREE years on Agency before being offered a permanent job,that was the only way to get a job, as it was a "dead mans shoes"or retirement job.
But even that is changing now. I’m at a place that was considered a dead mans shoes job, a good company to work for and the best paying in the area by a considerable amount as it was paying the Mdlands Golden Triangle wages in East Yorkshire and it was even good wages down there. You either got in there through family or friends or via a few years on agency and nobody ever left. What has happened over the last several months with the situation as it is now is that people have left to go work elsewhere because other work which was maybe better suited for them but paid less is now paying the same or even more. They’ve also had to advertise for drivers too because where as before word of mouth would’ve been enough, like me most drivers they know and would have asked are on the same or more money and happy where they are.
Now they did get plenty of applications and had no problem filling the permanent positions but agencies are an entirely different situation. Even though the agencies supplying them are offering parity pay from day 1 instead of week 12, the rates in Hull for agency have risen so much from the £10/hr they were last year that £16.17/hr isn’t worth them travelling half an hour each way for. At the start of the annual sales period my agency was 9 drivers short of what they were being asked to supply, it’s now at least 11 as my mate left to move to Scotland and is now on £18/hr at Malcolms and I’m on sick possibly looking at not being able to drive again. The shortage is so bad that for the first time in the 25 years I’ve been going into that place on agency that agency are probably finally going to be getting paid more than the permanent drivers, something that’s commonplace at every other company I’ve been sent to but not there.
Juddian:
Yup, though disagree with the 1/2 discrepancy, but once this false shortage has done whatever its designed to i have a nasty suspiscion the slide back to the bottom will begin.
Already seeing some agency lads not getting full weeks in.
.
Ah but is that only not getting them in where you are? If so that doesn’t mean anything. They may not get a full week in where you are but they may get a full week in by being sent elsewhere for the time they’re not at your spot. You’ll also get some who because of how much they earn don’t really care that they don’t get a full week in so if they get 3/4 days they’ll just not bother about the rest and have a long weekend.
Remember that whilst wage rises are a unilateral decision and employer can make that once wages rise an employer can’t just make the unilateral decision to drop them again. They have to get the agreement of the employees to drop the wages and if the employees don’t agree then the only resort for the employer is to make them redundant which involves redundancy pay if they’ve been there 2 years or more and no guarantee the driver is going to be willing to come back on the lower pay. With the wages in many non-driving jobs also rising considerably, the money not being the only reason drivers are quitting and the inability to bus in cheap Eastern European drivers anymore even when there have been visas available for them to come here would you as a haulage company be willing to cut pay and risk the chance that your drivers won’t come back?
As for unpopular jobs, well hard graft or filthy or awkward or even specialised skilled jobs have often paid well over the normal rate for a given area, or basically they wouldn’t get any bugger to do it,
Lots of hard graft, filthy, awkward and specialist skilled jobs have had low pay. Caring would be one that ticked all those boxes and NMW or barely above it has been the level of pay for decades. Same for cleaners. And they get plenty of people to do it because they have low academic qualification requirements or people live in an area like I grew up in where those kinds of jobs are the most common vacancies advertised and it’s a case of having to do it or being on the dole so it’s not like they have a choice.
ScaniaUltimate:
Interesting.
Does that suggest you believe the often non-driving labour required of class 2 drivers is more valuable than the greater skill-set of class 1 drivers?
From my…
Own experiences starting with a Ford D series on multi-drop, chilled on a DAF 2300 class 2 with a tail-lift and a Guy Big J4 delivering pet food, you’ll do a great deal more graft finding, parking, arguing, picking stuff up that fell off/over, pushing trolleys with dog food on the top and bog roll on the bottom up cobbled streets. Then of course you’ll have your collections too.
I do class 1 because it’s easier (keep yer ■■■■■■■ curtains) solid walls only. I admit there are artic multi-drop jobs but, I’d never apply for them. The only artic drop work I’ve done (Superdrug supplied a drivers mate with keys, alarm codes and an ability to fall asleep whilst actually going up on the tail-lift holding the button in). I drove there and the two of us tipped/loaded it all.
yourhavingalarf:
(Superdrug supplied a drivers mate with keys, alarm codes and an ability to fall asleep whilst actually going up on the tail-lift holding the button in). I drove there and the two of us tipped/loaded it all.
Lol, I’ve had 2 jobs (1 day each) with a drivers mate, worst jobs I ever had. One of them was almost ok, at least he kept his mouth shut (when he wasn’t talking on his phone). Probably worst part was the infuriating fact that they get £1 less per hour but get to sleep/play on phone/eat/smoke/drink/feet up of course while you drive (80% of the day or night) then you’re expected to work as hard as them when loading/unlaoding. SO you end up doing 2 times the work in total for £1 per hour. Nice. No wonder neither of them had an interest in becoming a driver himself.
Actaully I also did a moving job with an agency in an 18t. When I got there I found a team of about a dozen loaders/movers. They had thrown all the chairs and tables and stuff out of the building (it was more of a empty the stuff and take it to the scrapyard kind of job) and said driver has to load it as it’s him who’s going to be unloading it. I stood there and said there must be some misunderstanding, I’ll get me an Uber home and you guys get the agency to send you a proper driver. They eventually agreed to load the stuff themselves and sent 2 with me to assist with unloading. On the way one was chatting with the other how he ‘‘almost’’ had his class 2 license but had to do some theory tests and coudlnt be arsed to finish it (I think it was at the time when there was gov’t sponsored hgv-courses? Autumn of 2018 ) for 70p an hour more on the ‘‘same job’’ just doing driving on top of it. He was an obvious weed connoisseur as well
