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several freight-forwarding/logistics companies in my country are pulling their trucks from going to the UK (Schenker is just one of many). It's too much hassle

several freight-forwarding/logistics companies in my country are pulling their trucks from going to the UK (Schenker is just one of many). It's too much hassle for them. My friend works for a mid-size logistic company where their trucks still go to UK but he reckons it's a big risk even in the short-term because drivers will not put up with it and leave the company. (note: well paid long distance truckers do not exist anymore) For those who believe the market will fix it: Well paid drivers no longer exist. The last time he has seen a local work as truck driver was in mid-2000 and meanwhile salaries have dropped to ~€700 and less therefore only some Eastern Europeans can justify that working as a driver still makes sense for them. There is not much wiggle room left in terms of just paying better salaries - even smaller freight-forwarders are asking themselves whether it continues to go there (at least for now). He is also not happy about having historically taken care of UK freight business and that he should just roll with it. He says all the customs/declaration headache with the UK is now not different than being in charge of shipping to Uzbekistan or Russia, and he can't see profits for them in the UK market only risks which especially are a bitter pill for smaller freight-forwarders. What makes it worse is that UK customers have a high level of expectations of services. Their service industry has always been put on a pedestal especially when comparing themselves to France/Germany/etc, ... people expect cheap, fast and highly tailored to the customer. That was already hard before, and it's going to become impossible now to satisfy the expectations. As an example pre-Brexit, he had a truck go there on Monday and it was supposed to return by the next morning with a full load (booked for the way back). Now the same trucks return empty and also are stuck frequently, sometimes a whole week because even locals don't understand the paperwork. And truckers had enough of pissing into bottles too. It's a huge risk for UK businesses when the costs of the supply chain become hard to predict. But why don't they just warehouse more stock? They have like everyone today a JIT supply-chain and there isn't any storage to stock up. These warehouses would literally have to be built.

makomk 6y ago
> For those who believe the market will fix it: Well paid drivers no longer exist. The last time he has seen a local work as truck driver was in mid-2000 and meanwhile salaries have dropped to ~€700 and less therefore only some Eastern Europeans can justify that working as a driver still makes sense for them. There is not much wiggle room left in terms of just paying better salaries - even smaller freight-forwarders are asking themselves whether it continues to go there (at least for now). Which is probably, in part, why Brexit happened. Think about it - this is a career that used to provide fairly well-paid jobs to British people, but EU rules around access to our trucking market meant that wages were driven down so much that the only people who can do that work are Eastern Europeans based in countries with much lower cost of living. And the response of the British elite, including our press, was to insist that this didn't happen, that working class people were just brainwashed into blaming the EU because they were too stupid to realise it was their own damn fault they didn't have jobs. There's comments along those lines in almost every HN discussion of Brexit, including the other one that's on the front page right now.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  So, why aren't these high paying trucking jobs reappearing now that Brexit happened? And if this were somehow a EU problem, why aren't the trucking firms making bank off of all that cheap Eastern European labor?
  - lucian1900 6y ago
    Lots of firms and the banks that own and fund them have been making a killing out of exploiting us Eastern Europeans, actually. All of this while enforcing privatisations, austerity and deregulation in our countries to force us to accept such low wages, both abroad and at home. The high paying jobs won’t come back without class struggle. Just because the periphery of the EU was pillaged to such an extreme doesn’t mean the working class in the centre wasn’t exploited too.
  - tored 6y ago
    Rebuilding an industry takes time, those resources that was previously allocated to this industry is now allocated elsewhere and need to reallocate again. Also the expertise that is required to run a business like this is either gone or doing something else.
    - makomk 6y ago
      Yeah, there's some fairly difficult (and somewhat expensive) training and testing involved in being a HGV driver. As I understand it, one of the ways the EU helped Eastern European truckers outcompete local ones is that they could use their own countries' HGV licenses to do deliveries that were entirely within the UK and didn't have to go to the hassle and expense of getting a UK one. (Wouldn't be surprised if there was something of a race to the bottom in licensing too.)
      - VBprogrammer 6y ago
        While HGV driving is certainly a skill, the difficulty level has come down quite a bit in the last 50 years. My dad used to drive an ERF LV with no power steering and a 9 speed unsynchronized gear box. Now most trucks drive like a very large car, automatic gearbox or, at the very least, a ZF fully synchronised gearbox.
GrumpyNl 6y ago
Bigger risks, bigger profits. We did great before the EU and will do great after the EU.
- antientropic 6y ago
  The UK did not do great before the EU. In the 1960s it was considered the "sick man of Europe". That was the reason they wanted to join the EEC in the first place (and were refused twice by De Gaulle).
  - orwin 6y ago
    Yes, the man had his flaws but he was dead right on what to expect of people. He was right about the US and the UK.
- shawabawa3 6y ago
  "We did great before the EU" When? In the late 1800s? We joined the EC in 1973 partly due to falling behind economically to Western European powers within

makomk 6y ago

> For those who believe the market will fix it: Well paid drivers no longer exist. The last time he has seen a local work as truck driver was in mid-2000 and meanwhile salaries have dropped to ~€700 and less therefore only some Eastern Europeans can justify that working as a driver still makes sense for them. There is not much wiggle room left in terms of just paying better salaries - even smaller freight-forwarders are asking themselves whether it continues to go there (at least for now). Which is probably, in part, why Brexit happened. Think about it - this is a career that used to provide fairly well-paid jobs to British people, but EU rules around access to our trucking market meant that wages were driven down so much that the only people who can do that work are Eastern Europeans based in countries with much lower cost of living. And the response of the British elite, including our press, was to insist that this didn't happen, that working class people were just brainwashed into blaming the EU because they were too stupid to realise it was their own damn fault they didn't have jobs. There's comments along those lines in almost every HN discussion of Brexit, including the other one that's on the front page right now.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
So, why aren't these high paying trucking jobs reappearing now that Brexit happened? And if this were somehow a EU problem, why aren't the trucking firms making bank off of all that cheap Eastern European labor?
- lucian1900 6y ago
  Lots of firms and the banks that own and fund them have been making a killing out of exploiting us Eastern Europeans, actually. All of this while enforcing privatisations, austerity and deregulation in our countries to force us to accept such low wages, both abroad and at home. The high paying jobs won’t come back without class struggle. Just because the periphery of the EU was pillaged to such an extreme doesn’t mean the working class in the centre wasn’t exploited too.
- tored 6y ago
  Rebuilding an industry takes time, those resources that was previously allocated to this industry is now allocated elsewhere and need to reallocate again. Also the expertise that is required to run a business like this is either gone or doing something else.
  - makomk 6y ago
    Yeah, there's some fairly difficult (and somewhat expensive) training and testing involved in being a HGV driver. As I understand it, one of the ways the EU helped Eastern European truckers outcompete local ones is that they could use their own countries' HGV licenses to do deliveries that were entirely within the UK and didn't have to go to the hassle and expense of getting a UK one. (Wouldn't be surprised if there was something of a race to the bottom in licensing too.)
    - VBprogrammer 6y ago
      While HGV driving is certainly a skill, the difficulty level has come down quite a bit in the last 50 years. My dad used to drive an ERF LV with no power steering and a 9 speed unsynchronized gear box. Now most trucks drive like a very large car, automatic gearbox or, at the very least, a ZF fully synchronised gearbox.

GrumpyNl 6y ago

Bigger risks, bigger profits. We did great before the EU and will do great after the EU.

antientropic 6y ago
The UK did not do great before the EU. In the 1960s it was considered the "sick man of Europe". That was the reason they wanted to join the EEC in the first place (and were refused twice by De Gaulle).
- orwin 6y ago
  Yes, the man had his flaws but he was dead right on what to expect of people. He was right about the US and the UK.
shawabawa3 6y ago
"We did great before the EU" When? In the late 1800s? We joined the EC in 1973 partly due to falling behind economically to Western European powers within