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Shapps (our transport secretary) is saying this isn't Brexit related. He told BBC Today: “Not only are there very large and even larger shortages in other EU co

by iamben 5y ago

Shapps (our transport secretary) is saying this isn't Brexit related. He told BBC Today: “Not only are there very large and even larger shortages in other EU countries like Poland and Germany, which clearly can’t be to do with Brexit, but actually because of Brexit I’ve been able to change the law and alter the way our driving tests operate in a way I could not have done if we were still part of the EU." I'm completely in agreement with you though. Without Brexit I don't think it would be anywhere near this bad (however utterly irrational it may be).

neximo64 5y ago
There are driver shortages in Australia too, where people over 70 who've retired have to come back to work. I don't really care for Brexit but its interesting how there have also been shortages of items at supermarkets in places that the same logic can't be applied. None for fuel though. But it's not always as clean cut.
mkr-hn 5y ago
It does provide an interesting A/B opportunity. You have all these countries in one economic union, and one that was in it for a long time, and now there's an opportunity to compare the depth of crises. We're also having trouble finding drivers here in the US, but we're also ground zero for the app delivery gig thing and that's probably giving the worse-paid truck drivers options. I know there's been an explosion of app delivery services across Europe. Could that be a contributing factor?
rob74 5y ago
Of course there are shortages in jobs with bad working conditions and low pay in other EU countries too - but, due to the continued access to workers from poor EU countries who are willing to do these jobs, these shortages are not nearly as bad as in the UK. So of course it's Brexit related!
- fmajid 5y ago
  Working conditions are way better for drivers in the EU. They have rest stops with restrooms, for instance, so they don’t have to do their business on the roadside. The UK government is just showing how out of touch and incompetent it is if it thinks there will be any takers. A bigger problem is the horrendous backlog in licence applications at DVLA that means new drivers cannot start working. Finally, the IR35 tax treatment of many drivers means they would actually lose money by driving.
legulere 5y ago
I am living in Germany and have not heard about any driver shortage here, but have read about the shortage in the UK.
mrtksn 5y ago
I Googled that a bit and couldn't find any news about the shortages in EU, except for the claim by Shapps. There were some articles about structural shortages, like the situation is not ideal and in 5 years it would get worse kind of articles. Any links demonstrating that market shelves are empty and fuel cannot be delivered to the gas stations across EU?
- native_samples 5y ago
  Market shelves empty no, but that's due to panic buying caused by media reports more than actual shortages. As for HGV driver shortages in Europe, here's one discussion from an industry insider: https://trans.info/en/there-s-a-europe-wide-hgv-driver-shortage-so-why-do-uk-supply-chains-seem-more-disrupted-254524 https://trans.info/en/there-s-a-europe-wide-hgv-driver-short... The idea it's to do with Brexit is a red herring. There's a certain section of society that tries to blame absolutely everything on Brexit in a kneejerk fashion, regardless of reality. Border rules changed on Jan 1st and problems are hitting now because they're actually mostly driven by lockdown and the damage it did to supply chains. One of those components that lockdowns disrupted was approval of new HGV drivers. There's a backlog of 40,000 HGV driving tests the government just stopped doing during lockdowns. Well, lots of drivers are retiring, so if you throttle the supply at the same time as destroying the goods economy you're going to get a big shortfall. That's inevitable.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    Are you sure it’s panic buying? I have been seeing it for weeks now. The gasoline shortage might be panic buying but the other ones have been happening for way too long to be due to sudden increase on demand. Why Europeans don’t panic? Are they too chill?
    - native_samples 5y ago
      Look at charts of road haulage. The drop and rebound due to lockdowns was far larger and more sudden than the 2008 financial crash. There are disruptions and shortages in the USA too. There's definitely been a huge surge in demand (back to normal levels). As for the rest of Europe, I don't know but I suspect they didn't shut down HGV driver approvals in the same way or didn't do so everywhere. The British government got led into very hard and long lockdowns compared to many countries and did a lot of stupid things. NHS has massive unfixable backlogs too, same cause. You can't shut down "non essential" business for long periods and not have big problems as a consequence. Edit: why panic fuel buying. Political game playing by lorry bosses, apparently: "The Road Haulage Association (RHA), which attended a Zoom call hosted by the Cabinet Office to discuss driver shortages, has been accused of prompting the weekend’s panic-buying in order to further its own political agenda. The RHA has been campaigning for months for cheap foreign labour to be allowed back into the country to make up a shortfall of lorry drivers which it has “massively exaggerated”, sources say. One senior Government source said that the RHA “owes an apology to the British people” for the weekend chaos." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/09/26/haulage-body-anti-brexit-drive-behind-fuel-crisis-leak-claim/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/09/26/haulage-body... i.e. the idea Brexit is to blame is sort of half inverted truth: lots of powerful people stand to lose out from increasing wages for the working class and aren't above manipulating the public to try and stop that happening. And it works. Bojo just approved 5000 visas.
rasz 5y ago
>very large and even larger shortages in other EU countries like Poland This is news to people in Poland, unless he was talking about March 2020.

by iamben 5y ago

neximo64 5y ago

There are driver shortages in Australia too, where people over 70 who've retired have to come back to work. I don't really care for Brexit but its interesting how there have also been shortages of items at supermarkets in places that the same logic can't be applied. None for fuel though. But it's not always as clean cut.

mkr-hn 5y ago

It does provide an interesting A/B opportunity. You have all these countries in one economic union, and one that was in it for a long time, and now there's an opportunity to compare the depth of crises. We're also having trouble finding drivers here in the US, but we're also ground zero for the app delivery gig thing and that's probably giving the worse-paid truck drivers options. I know there's been an explosion of app delivery services across Europe. Could that be a contributing factor?

rob74 5y ago

Of course there are shortages in jobs with bad working conditions and low pay in other EU countries too - but, due to the continued access to workers from poor EU countries who are willing to do these jobs, these shortages are not nearly as bad as in the UK. So of course it's Brexit related!

fmajid 5y ago
Working conditions are way better for drivers in the EU. They have rest stops with restrooms, for instance, so they don’t have to do their business on the roadside. The UK government is just showing how out of touch and incompetent it is if it thinks there will be any takers. A bigger problem is the horrendous backlog in licence applications at DVLA that means new drivers cannot start working. Finally, the IR35 tax treatment of many drivers means they would actually lose money by driving.

legulere 5y ago

I am living in Germany and have not heard about any driver shortage here, but have read about the shortage in the UK.

mrtksn 5y ago

I Googled that a bit and couldn't find any news about the shortages in EU, except for the claim by Shapps. There were some articles about structural shortages, like the situation is not ideal and in 5 years it would get worse kind of articles. Any links demonstrating that market shelves are empty and fuel cannot be delivered to the gas stations across EU?

native_samples 5y ago
Market shelves empty no, but that's due to panic buying caused by media reports more than actual shortages. As for HGV driver shortages in Europe, here's one discussion from an industry insider: https://trans.info/en/there-s-a-europe-wide-hgv-driver-shortage-so-why-do-uk-supply-chains-seem-more-disrupted-254524 https://trans.info/en/there-s-a-europe-wide-hgv-driver-short... The idea it's to do with Brexit is a red herring. There's a certain section of society that tries to blame absolutely everything on Brexit in a kneejerk fashion, regardless of reality. Border rules changed on Jan 1st and problems are hitting now because they're actually mostly driven by lockdown and the damage it did to supply chains. One of those components that lockdowns disrupted was approval of new HGV drivers. There's a backlog of 40,000 HGV driving tests the government just stopped doing during lockdowns. Well, lots of drivers are retiring, so if you throttle the supply at the same time as destroying the goods economy you're going to get a big shortfall. That's inevitable.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Are you sure it’s panic buying? I have been seeing it for weeks now. The gasoline shortage might be panic buying but the other ones have been happening for way too long to be due to sudden increase on demand. Why Europeans don’t panic? Are they too chill?
  - native_samples 5y ago
    Look at charts of road haulage. The drop and rebound due to lockdowns was far larger and more sudden than the 2008 financial crash. There are disruptions and shortages in the USA too. There's definitely been a huge surge in demand (back to normal levels). As for the rest of Europe, I don't know but I suspect they didn't shut down HGV driver approvals in the same way or didn't do so everywhere. The British government got led into very hard and long lockdowns compared to many countries and did a lot of stupid things. NHS has massive unfixable backlogs too, same cause. You can't shut down "non essential" business for long periods and not have big problems as a consequence. Edit: why panic fuel buying. Political game playing by lorry bosses, apparently: "The Road Haulage Association (RHA), which attended a Zoom call hosted by the Cabinet Office to discuss driver shortages, has been accused of prompting the weekend’s panic-buying in order to further its own political agenda. The RHA has been campaigning for months for cheap foreign labour to be allowed back into the country to make up a shortfall of lorry drivers which it has “massively exaggerated”, sources say. One senior Government source said that the RHA “owes an apology to the British people” for the weekend chaos." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/09/26/haulage-body-anti-brexit-drive-behind-fuel-crisis-leak-claim/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/09/26/haulage-body... i.e. the idea Brexit is to blame is sort of half inverted truth: lots of powerful people stand to lose out from increasing wages for the working class and aren't above manipulating the public to try and stop that happening. And it works. Bojo just approved 5000 visas.

rasz 5y ago

>very large and even larger shortages in other EU countries like Poland This is news to people in Poland, unless he was talking about March 2020.