I was talking to one of our subbie drivers tonight, he works for another big South Wales haulier based in Bridgend. He was telling me he’s on minimum wage, plus a five pound meal allowance per night. This is for night ADR work … £7.37 / hour for that area is actually not too bad.
A company would be breaking the law if it only employed British people.Mind you we have little chance of employment in their Countries.
Wages in South Wales are generally very low.
Theres a position for an assistant manager in our local post office for about the same as Owens are offering.
the low wages are, to a certain extent, balanced by very low house rents/prices.
but conversely some other prices are high…used cars for example are overpriced and poor quality when compared to elsewhere. I had to buy my last used car 80 miles away in Wiltshire because the choice locally was so bad.
Anyone who wants a decent wage in South Wales seems to end up commuting to Bristol…and wasting a lot of time and money on the M4 and the bridge.
When I worked for a company in Gloucester we always had at least one employee doing the ‘international commute’ from South Wales.
alamcculloch:
A company would be breaking the law if it only employed British people.Mind you we have little chance of employment in their Countries.
A Company could employ only British workers, but cant favour british applicants over other Nationalities. Though as usual, are authorities would enforce the law far more vigorouly than other EU partners 
newmercman:
mike68:
I worked for Owens for a short time in 2009/10, to be fair to them that pay for that part of the world is reasonable they run by then book and they’re not on your back all the time.Back in the day you could earn some proper money in South Wales all the industry has gone, and the bridge tolls have finished that hence the commute to Avonmouth for many.
I heard that all the big players down in that part of the world all pay the same money, not a cartel as such, just market driven economics at work…
The money is poor in the region and has been for a while, I work for a certain purveyor of fine foods and retail experience operating from the Avonmouth area, the majority of the drivers like myself are from South Wales as you say market economics=more bums than seats.
Harry Monk:
I just don’t understand all these “HGV driving job pays going rate for HGV driving job” threads which are appearing lately.
Surely the only reason an employee would want to venture out the door of a morning is to pay their bills and have some cash left over to have some sort of life outside of work 
What many of these ‘crud wage’ postings highlight, is that it won’t be the September deadline that will create the future driver shortage, but the fact that only a complete numpty would typically shell out 3K of their own money for no real benefits in monetary terms.
Simple fact that driving is not considered a skilled job and the pay reflects that, you don’t have to shell out a load of cash to work in an office or a factory and comply with so many regulations.
Some see truck driving as glamorous and its not until they get into it that they realise that they have spent a load of money on training and licenses just to earn a lower wage than working in a shop.
In days now long gone it was a hard job with roping and sheeting etc, it was a dirty smelly job but now its not.
brados:
Some see truck driving as glamorous and its not until they get into it that they realise that they have spent a load of money on training and licenses just to earn a lower wage than working in a shop.
That’s not the case though is it. Forget hourly rates, you cannot bank 4-500+ a week working in a shop stacking shelves. Period. You’d be lucky to even get 37 hours.
OK, the 4-500 figure I quoted was off the mark although in the grand scheme of things you can earn that with a HGV license.
Tues-Sat in this job above would bank you, after tax, about £318 for 50 hours. Now, I personally wouldn’t do that, but even so I would challenge anybody to find a low skilled job in that area that offered more take home pay than that. Given it only takes a week to get ‘qualified’, if you have the money to hand I can see why low skilled people take the plunge and do it as it will pay for itself after a while. At the end of the day, people are interested in how much money they can bank to support their families.