5 ms·

The official line is that there is a lack of truck drivers, which is mostly true because Brexit has prevented a lot of the foreign drivers from working

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
heywherelogingo 5y ago
No mention of lockdown effects detracts from the credibility of that comment.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  no other country with a lockdown is having the same problem, and GB sort of stopped their lockdowns a while ago, didn't they? Workers aren't prevented from travelling because of Covid restrictions, but Visa restrictions do apply. Also it's not a good prospect to move to a country where you feel like you are on some kind of a migratory ejection seat...
  - timellis-smith 5y ago
    Europe also has a shortage https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9946817/amp/Now-lorry-driver-shortage-hits-Europe-Germany-France-Spain-suffer-shortfall-400-000.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl... This is widely reported across a number of publications
    - drcongo 5y ago
      Is this the most trustworthy source you could find?
    - timellis-smith 5y ago
      Can't comment on the child of the post for some reason. Here is another source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/24/dont-blame-brexit-driver-shortages/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/24/dont-blame-b... Somehow it seems on these forums that any left leaning publication is immediately trusted but any right leaning one immediately distrusted.
      - bayesian_horse 5y ago
        It's just that the shelves in the UK are empty, and in the other countries they aren't. Both in the UK and in the rest of the EU there already was a shortage of professional drivers. And the companies in the UK do seem to blame the VISA situation as a major contributing factor.
        timellis-smith 5y ago
        Indeed so, but that may still be due to more complicated factors. At no point have I said it isn't a factor, just that it's one of many.
        hogFeast 5y ago
        The shelves in the UK aren't empty. The press in Europe appears to be eagerly reporting this fact. Where I am, the supply of fresh food has improved significantly since the start of Covid. I don't know of anyone who has had problems buying food (if anyone did, there would be panic buying). There has been industrial action at some places, and some individual producers have driver shortages. It is not widespread at all (and btw, I live in rural area...we have had shortages before due to bad weather, but what is happening now isn't noticeable unless you are familiar with the grocery supply chain...this stuff is just being reported because it relates to Brexit, which journalists care about). It is fair to say there were probably problems due to Brexit for the supply of some fresh food...but that was months ago, and I didn't notice any disruption even then. And btw, if drivers were going to leave because of Brexit, they could have left between 2016-2020, the UK didn't ask anyone to leave, they all had the right to stay and work...most left in 2020, due to Covid, before we left. The timeline makes no sense. The companies blame visa rules because they don't want to pay staff more. It is that simple (what people don't understand, even in the UK, these stories are all coming from a lobbying group of haulers...not drivers, the people who are having to pay staff more and are very angry about doing so, they just want the cheap labour back). One of the companies that has had persistent shortages for months is a bread producer making £30m/year, they have 150 driver vacancies. I know someone who talked to a hiring manager there, they pay below market, they are experiencing massive attrition, when he asked what pay rises they were offering...2%, "the rise is satisfactory, workers should be happy"...meanwhile other firms are paying 10-30% raises, some HGV drivers are being retained on £50-60k salaries (this producer pays people £27k for multi-drop, starting at 2am, I believe it is mostly class 2 but their wages are a fantasy). Some firms in the UK have glutted themselves on cheap labour. They have no idea how to operate any other way (and btw, this bread producer is throwing away product every day because they don't have drivers, at no point have they tried to raise wages, they believe the low wage labour will return it seems).
  - joeberon 5y ago
    Yes I came from GB to Germany a month ago and I can say that definitely the lockdown is basically over back there
- jack_riminton 5y ago
  Which is why I said mostly. Unless you'd care to exactly quantify the reasons?
- dukeyukey 5y ago
  I can tell you now, the UK has functionally no restrictions within the country. You ought to wear masks on public transport, that's about it. Lockdown is over, for now at least.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    The lockdown has had some effect: HGV tests and lessons were restricted over the lockdown period. And the DVLA has also gone on strike due to covid workplace safety concerns which has meant that those who have passed their tests have been delayed in getting their licenses.
  - heywherelogingo 5y ago
    You're saying effects are only instantaneous. No comment.
    - dukeyukey 5y ago
      I don't think I'm saying that. The only thing I meant was the UK has no lockdown right now, and hasn't for a number of months. I imagine lockdown had some effect, but other countries that went through harsher conditions aren't seeing the shortages the UK is, so I imagine other things are more to blame.
bayesian_horse 5y ago
It's definitely true that they lack truckers. They don't just grow on trees, and when a few tens of thousands leave, well...
- politelemon 5y ago
  > They don't just grow on trees, Reminiscent of Teresa May's "magic money tree" comment
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - darrenf 5y ago
    I've genuinely no idea why this is phrase is most frequently associated with May. As best I can tell she was just regurgitating a line from her predecessor: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21694944 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21694944
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  I'd be leaving, too, if I'd spent Christmas stranded on an airfield. https://jalopnik.com/uk-airfield-becomes-worlds-largest-truck-stop-as-driver-1845941016 https://jalopnik.com/uk-airfield-becomes-worlds-largest-truc...
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  There are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK with HGV licenses but only half of them driving. This problem has been brewing for decades as the jobs have been outsourced to low cost countries and the drivers mercilessly exploited. Now that some economies have improved and COVID has hit a lot of those drivers are either unavailable or simply unwilling to travel so far and so long in horrible working conditions for so little reward. Society needs to recalibrate the value of workers who do manual work. There really is no good reason why the average software developer should be paid more than an HGV driver while enjoying much better working conditions. See https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Software_Developer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Software_Developer/..., https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Heavy_%2F_Tractor-Trailer_Truck_Driver/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Heavy_%2F_Tractor-T..., https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Delivery_Driver/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Delivery_Driver/Hou...
timellis-smith 5y ago
Brexit may be a (small) part of it, but it certainly isn't the whole picture. Btw much of Europe faces a shortage of drivers as well. There are a number of factors at play including delayed testing because of covid, relatively low wages, and perhaps drivers shifting to more local deliveries e.g. supermarkets post covid due to changing demand. I was speaking to a taxi driver who said the taxi industry was being decimated by this
- mpweiher 5y ago
  The rest of Europe has mostly projected driver shortages, and no acute shortages of drivers, let alone goods. So yes, while there is a wider issue, the wider issue is not the current problem or the high-order bit. Note also that UGKOV plans to address the driver shortage by offering to ease restrictions on non UK-based (i.e. EU) drivers. So yes, this is totally due to Brexit.
  - handelaar 5y ago
    ...the same non-UK-based drivers that it proposes to kick out of the country again on December 24th. And the same drivers that last year on December 24th it corralled onto a disused airport runway behind fences and locked the doors so they couldn't go anywhere while being kicked out of the country. Hard to imagine why they might not be jumping at the chance to spend another Xmas with no access to sanitation or even food in a place that is run by people who abuse them publicly every day
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  The supply of drivers is somewhat fungible, but it doesn't just multiply when demand is high and shrink when it is low. Those are Human beings that have to be, in essence, "stolen away" from another job, in the case of high school graduates (or whatever you call them) from another potential career. That's why wage isn't the magic wand many people believe it to be. If one industry increases wages (provided they can afford it), another gets the short stick. Unless you "steal" workers from other countries. As the UK did/does successfully for example with health workers...
- 5y ago
native_samples 5y ago
That's actually not the official line. That's the line of the Road Hauliers Association. The government line was provided to the Telegraph yesterday, and goes like this: - There is only really a "shortage" of about 100-150 tanker drivers in the entire country. - The petrol shortage was caused by aforementioned hauliers association deliberately telling the press that there was about to be a massive fuel shortage. That wasn't true but triggered panic buying, provoking an artificial "crisis" that was used (successfully) to put pressure on the government to issue some visas to eastern European truckies. - There are more vacancies for HGV drivers, but that's mostly due to a lockdown-induced backlog at the driver licensing authority, combined with many people who have HGV licenses not wanting to drive due to poor pay and conditions. - Brexit isn't the cause of this (which at any rate came into effect at the start of the year), except via a rather tortuous route ... the people at the RHA who manipulated the public through the press are all notoriously and outspokenly anti-Brexit, and they unfortunately have a history of leaking, in fact their press guy is a former BBC journalist already known to the government for prior leaking. BBC is of course notoriously anti-Brexit culturally. Therefore it is very likely these people saw an opportunity to both make money by getting access back to cheap labour whilst simultaneously winning a propaganda victory by convincing everyone to blame Brexit. - And in fact Brexit has allowed the government to rapidly adjust the criteria for licensing HGV drivers to help clear the backlog, which wouldn't otherwise have been possible under EU rules. So that's the official line at the moment.
- gm3dmo 5y ago
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/924574.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/924574.stm interesting that in 2000 the panic was sparked by an active measure, e.g. a physical blockade of refineries, this time round it only took a leaked document.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

heywherelogingo 5y ago

No mention of lockdown effects detracts from the credibility of that comment.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
no other country with a lockdown is having the same problem, and GB sort of stopped their lockdowns a while ago, didn't they? Workers aren't prevented from travelling because of Covid restrictions, but Visa restrictions do apply. Also it's not a good prospect to move to a country where you feel like you are on some kind of a migratory ejection seat...
- timellis-smith 5y ago
  Europe also has a shortage https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9946817/amp/Now-lorry-driver-shortage-hits-Europe-Germany-France-Spain-suffer-shortfall-400-000.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl... This is widely reported across a number of publications
  - drcongo 5y ago
    Is this the most trustworthy source you could find?
  - timellis-smith 5y ago
    Can't comment on the child of the post for some reason. Here is another source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/24/dont-blame-brexit-driver-shortages/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/24/dont-blame-b... Somehow it seems on these forums that any left leaning publication is immediately trusted but any right leaning one immediately distrusted.
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      It's just that the shelves in the UK are empty, and in the other countries they aren't. Both in the UK and in the rest of the EU there already was a shortage of professional drivers. And the companies in the UK do seem to blame the VISA situation as a major contributing factor.
      - timellis-smith 5y ago
        Indeed so, but that may still be due to more complicated factors. At no point have I said it isn't a factor, just that it's one of many.
      - hogFeast 5y ago
        The shelves in the UK aren't empty. The press in Europe appears to be eagerly reporting this fact. Where I am, the supply of fresh food has improved significantly since the start of Covid. I don't know of anyone who has had problems buying food (if anyone did, there would be panic buying). There has been industrial action at some places, and some individual producers have driver shortages. It is not widespread at all (and btw, I live in rural area...we have had shortages before due to bad weather, but what is happening now isn't noticeable unless you are familiar with the grocery supply chain...this stuff is just being reported because it relates to Brexit, which journalists care about). It is fair to say there were probably problems due to Brexit for the supply of some fresh food...but that was months ago, and I didn't notice any disruption even then. And btw, if drivers were going to leave because of Brexit, they could have left between 2016-2020, the UK didn't ask anyone to leave, they all had the right to stay and work...most left in 2020, due to Covid, before we left. The timeline makes no sense. The companies blame visa rules because they don't want to pay staff more. It is that simple (what people don't understand, even in the UK, these stories are all coming from a lobbying group of haulers...not drivers, the people who are having to pay staff more and are very angry about doing so, they just want the cheap labour back). One of the companies that has had persistent shortages for months is a bread producer making £30m/year, they have 150 driver vacancies. I know someone who talked to a hiring manager there, they pay below market, they are experiencing massive attrition, when he asked what pay rises they were offering...2%, "the rise is satisfactory, workers should be happy"...meanwhile other firms are paying 10-30% raises, some HGV drivers are being retained on £50-60k salaries (this producer pays people £27k for multi-drop, starting at 2am, I believe it is mostly class 2 but their wages are a fantasy). Some firms in the UK have glutted themselves on cheap labour. They have no idea how to operate any other way (and btw, this bread producer is throwing away product every day because they don't have drivers, at no point have they tried to raise wages, they believe the low wage labour will return it seems).
- joeberon 5y ago
  Yes I came from GB to Germany a month ago and I can say that definitely the lockdown is basically over back there
jack_riminton 5y ago
Which is why I said mostly. Unless you'd care to exactly quantify the reasons?
dukeyukey 5y ago
I can tell you now, the UK has functionally no restrictions within the country. You ought to wear masks on public transport, that's about it. Lockdown is over, for now at least.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  The lockdown has had some effect: HGV tests and lessons were restricted over the lockdown period. And the DVLA has also gone on strike due to covid workplace safety concerns which has meant that those who have passed their tests have been delayed in getting their licenses.
- heywherelogingo 5y ago
  You're saying effects are only instantaneous. No comment.
  - dukeyukey 5y ago
    I don't think I'm saying that. The only thing I meant was the UK has no lockdown right now, and hasn't for a number of months. I imagine lockdown had some effect, but other countries that went through harsher conditions aren't seeing the shortages the UK is, so I imagine other things are more to blame.

bayesian_horse 5y ago

It's definitely true that they lack truckers. They don't just grow on trees, and when a few tens of thousands leave, well...

politelemon 5y ago
> They don't just grow on trees, Reminiscent of Teresa May's "magic money tree" comment
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- darrenf 5y ago
  I've genuinely no idea why this is phrase is most frequently associated with May. As best I can tell she was just regurgitating a line from her predecessor: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21694944 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21694944
ceejayoz 5y ago
I'd be leaving, too, if I'd spent Christmas stranded on an airfield. https://jalopnik.com/uk-airfield-becomes-worlds-largest-truck-stop-as-driver-1845941016 https://jalopnik.com/uk-airfield-becomes-worlds-largest-truc...
kwhitefoot 5y ago
There are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK with HGV licenses but only half of them driving. This problem has been brewing for decades as the jobs have been outsourced to low cost countries and the drivers mercilessly exploited. Now that some economies have improved and COVID has hit a lot of those drivers are either unavailable or simply unwilling to travel so far and so long in horrible working conditions for so little reward. Society needs to recalibrate the value of workers who do manual work. There really is no good reason why the average software developer should be paid more than an HGV driver while enjoying much better working conditions. See https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Software_Developer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Software_Developer/..., https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Heavy_%2F_Tractor-Trailer_Truck_Driver/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Heavy_%2F_Tractor-T..., https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Delivery_Driver/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Delivery_Driver/Hou...

timellis-smith 5y ago

Brexit may be a (small) part of it, but it certainly isn't the whole picture. Btw much of Europe faces a shortage of drivers as well. There are a number of factors at play including delayed testing because of covid, relatively low wages, and perhaps drivers shifting to more local deliveries e.g. supermarkets post covid due to changing demand. I was speaking to a taxi driver who said the taxi industry was being decimated by this

mpweiher 5y ago
The rest of Europe has mostly projected driver shortages, and no acute shortages of drivers, let alone goods. So yes, while there is a wider issue, the wider issue is not the current problem or the high-order bit. Note also that UGKOV plans to address the driver shortage by offering to ease restrictions on non UK-based (i.e. EU) drivers. So yes, this is totally due to Brexit.
- handelaar 5y ago
  ...the same non-UK-based drivers that it proposes to kick out of the country again on December 24th. And the same drivers that last year on December 24th it corralled onto a disused airport runway behind fences and locked the doors so they couldn't go anywhere while being kicked out of the country. Hard to imagine why they might not be jumping at the chance to spend another Xmas with no access to sanitation or even food in a place that is run by people who abuse them publicly every day
bayesian_horse 5y ago
The supply of drivers is somewhat fungible, but it doesn't just multiply when demand is high and shrink when it is low. Those are Human beings that have to be, in essence, "stolen away" from another job, in the case of high school graduates (or whatever you call them) from another potential career. That's why wage isn't the magic wand many people believe it to be. If one industry increases wages (provided they can afford it), another gets the short stick. Unless you "steal" workers from other countries. As the UK did/does successfully for example with health workers...
5y ago

native_samples 5y ago

That's actually not the official line. That's the line of the Road Hauliers Association. The government line was provided to the Telegraph yesterday, and goes like this: - There is only really a "shortage" of about 100-150 tanker drivers in the entire country. - The petrol shortage was caused by aforementioned hauliers association deliberately telling the press that there was about to be a massive fuel shortage. That wasn't true but triggered panic buying, provoking an artificial "crisis" that was used (successfully) to put pressure on the government to issue some visas to eastern European truckies. - There are more vacancies for HGV drivers, but that's mostly due to a lockdown-induced backlog at the driver licensing authority, combined with many people who have HGV licenses not wanting to drive due to poor pay and conditions. - Brexit isn't the cause of this (which at any rate came into effect at the start of the year), except via a rather tortuous route ... the people at the RHA who manipulated the public through the press are all notoriously and outspokenly anti-Brexit, and they unfortunately have a history of leaking, in fact their press guy is a former BBC journalist already known to the government for prior leaking. BBC is of course notoriously anti-Brexit culturally. Therefore it is very likely these people saw an opportunity to both make money by getting access back to cheap labour whilst simultaneously winning a propaganda victory by convincing everyone to blame Brexit. - And in fact Brexit has allowed the government to rapidly adjust the criteria for licensing HGV drivers to help clear the backlog, which wouldn't otherwise have been possible under EU rules. So that's the official line at the moment.

gm3dmo 5y ago
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/924574.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/924574.stm interesting that in 2000 the panic was sparked by an active measure, e.g. a physical blockade of refineries, this time round it only took a leaked document.