The power that employers have over the driver - is too many of them cannot do anything else. They rely upon having a driving job rather than have the skills to get any job they wish.
Even among 100 drivers none of whom have a degree - there is always going to be a world of difference between a “dinosaur” type driver and the more “Progressive” type. 
Winseer:
The power that employers have over the driver - is too many of them cannot do anything else. They rely upon having a driving job rather than have the skills to get any job they wish.
I gave up driving quite a few years ago and only reinstated my vocational licenses last year as my other line of work electrical and electronics, is still in the doldrums, with many companies trying to deskill the roles to reduce pay rates, usually with disastrous consequences.
Not being attracted by the ‘work your nuts off’ for minimum wage offerings out there, I am driving trucks again. At the moment on a long term agency booking on tippers, with a firm that struggles to get people to drive for them. Like most things with driving though, I need to ensure I stretch it into 10 hour days to wake it worth my while. There are very few driving jobs where a standard 40 hour week, would give people a half decent lifestyle.
Pimpdaddy:
boredwivdrivin:
There is no driver shortage . just jobs that are short on wages and no one wants to do+1
Here Here!!
Carryfast:
alder:
I am afraid the workers were defeated in the late 70’s when the free market economy model was adopted as used in America. Laws curtailed the unions and the message went out that if you strike we will sack you and bring in the army if need be as in 1977 when the firemen went on strike. Of course Margaret Thatcher took this to a whole new level by taking on the press, miners, ship yards, farmers and everyone else who wanted to cling on to the “workers have rights” mantra and she defeated the lot. Of course New Labour and Tony Blair who were seen as the saviours of the working class went one better than Thatcher. Why rely on the army or let industry and the fat cats suffer while disputes linger when you can simply import mass cheap labour and at the same time harvest the new labours forces votes? So today any notion of militancy or standing up for old fashioned rights will be met with there is the door.
Absolutely spot on!
The human being never needed degrees in the first place, in fact to prove a point why are all the wages and conditions the same, low pay long hours ect, ect.It’s as plain as day that there are companies out there big and small with huge profits,yet they pay the same as every body else and struggle to get drivers.I do notice how ever that agency’s are the saviors and they will pay them far more then a driver and keep employing them until they can get someone to come in and do the job permanently,then of course the driver packs it in because the wage is fixed and conditions are so bad that he goes back onto the same agency.
So you now see a pattern of driver shortage with no wage rise,any other time supply and demand dictates price except in driving.There is evidence of price fixing and the driver is the one who suffers.Sadly that’s the way it is at the moment,I also think that too many people on here are of a certain age and are still terrified of thatcherism and cheating unions and they’d be right but because the fight was lost then doesn’t mean we give up completely and start to turn on each other,like I said before us human beings have to unite.
Inflation was historically friendly to workers. With a high inflation rate, getting a pay rise automatically linked to inflation meant that in real terms you at least stayed up to date. Debts shrunk over the years, as inflation eroded them away.
For the past decade though - inflation rather than interest rates (which is merely a symptom of low inflation) has crashed, taking wage rises with it. Meanwhile, debts that one could once rely on inflation to erode - now stack up thanks to compounding, and the illusion that a low interest rate somehow “makes them more affordable”.
The low interest rate is key to debts continuing to be paid. Should they rise sharply, a lot of people are just going to throw in the towel. Rinse and repeat a few million times - and the bank itself goes under. Those savers who think they actually want super high interest rates right now - are talking through their collective hats - The higher return anticipated will be stripped out by the bank they save with going under… The first few might get bailed out under the “savers guarantee” from the bank of England - but as more and more banks fail - the Bank of England will just break it’s promise, and those savers foolish enough to leave their money lying around in UK savings accounts - will end up losing it all. A strong slide in Sterling will herald the final stages of this cycle of course.
No sign of such a slide as yet - but a lot of that is China deliberately weaking it’s own currency by bolstering it’s foreign reserves. In other words, they spend some of their vast wealth in stockpiling currencies around the world, including Euros and Sterling. This, in turn, keeps interest rates low, inflation low, and debts sky high. Workers will find themselves all on 7 hour (rather than zero hour) contracts - so that they get paid 7x£6.50 minimum each week - just enough to pay the £35 umbrella fee. The rest of the income that was topped up with tax credits - is now taxable. The Tories in scrapping tax credits and reducing household incomes for those on the minimum wage - have laid bare just how much near-Indian levels of poverty there are in this country without that safety net of in work benefits.
If debts start to get defaulted now - it will be a good thing. Defaulting debts seems to be the ONLY way at present that the poor can claw back some kind of recompense from the idle rich who continue to bang on about how low their savings returns are.
Politicians tell ever more elaborate lies to try and cover up what will be inevitable - IF they don’t pull their finger out and come up with some seriously radical policies to stop the rest of the world robbing us blind. There are too many people in the world. We’ve not had a “dieback” for decades. Either nature destroys the excesses, - or we do via WWIII. The only “third” option would be to start migrating off the actual planet - rather than think migrating to a country on a dangerous downhill slope itself - is going to solve anything long-term. 
As driver shortages are made up with lesser and lesser talent - the accidents, claims, & sudden yard close-downs will increase. CityLink going ■■■■-up last December is just the start of it.
There are a lot of other courier firms with pretty much exactly the same business model - get rid of waged staff, and move them onto self-employed contracts instead. Combine that with ever-decreasing returns pro rata - and a recipie for disaster is well under way.
No one seems to care about CityLink’s backers getting away Scot-free with the money, avoiding jail, and not even paying any personal taxes. Give this country a few more episodes like this - and we’ll be like Greece before the next general election. 
war1974:
no mention of the pay rates though ^
C’mon - we all know that there is only a shortage of drivers prepared to work for near minimum wage… Thus, the article assumes the rest of the public know that.
If they actually told the public that in the article though, a few less drivers might sign up as youngsters, and then we’d get a real shortage - where you can’t get a replacement driver for ANY money, such as is the case on NHS worker agencies and RMT strike coverage…
When you hear about “£50ph” - that’s the rate no one actually gets, because they only offer it when there’s no one with the actual qualifications stepping forward to just do that “odd shift”…
I invite anyone on here to post their payslip with £50ph on it… 
You might as well offer “Best rates for unicorn crap, hen’s teeth, and centegenarians”
If anyone holds a LGV licence at age 100 - they probably need to renew their entitement at that age every week I wouldn’t be surprised… 
Winseer:
Inflation was historically friendly to workers. With a high inflation rate, getting a pay rise automatically linked to inflation meant that in real terms you at least stayed up to date. Debts shrunk over the years, as inflation eroded them away.For the past decade though - inflation rather than interest rates (which is merely a symptom of low inflation) has crashed, taking wage rises with it. Meanwhile, debts that one could once rely on inflation to erode - now stack up thanks to compounding, and the illusion that a low interest rate somehow “makes them more affordable”.
Having been part of the 1970’s price/wage spiral the issue in fighting for better living standards was actually all about maintaining and re balancing the ‘relationship’ ‘between’ prices and incomes IE the ‘value’ of money in terms of what it would buy.While ‘inflation’ was what the establishment used to maintain the status quo based on the economically suicidal idea of ‘profit’ based on maximum return for least product.The result being the erosion of the value of money and therefore wages to where we are now.In which case no inflation wasn’t ‘friendly’ to the aims of the working class at all.It was actually the opposite in being a weapon used by the establishment to cancel out each wage v price improvement.
On that note it seems obvious that the answer now is either massive deflation or bust.With as usual the bankers yet again going for the latter on the basis that the former is unacceptable to our zb’d up version of Capitalism.Based as it is on the idea that it’s all about the amount of paper/cash they can show on the books in the form of so called ‘profit’ for the least product provided.As opposed to it being all about value for money in the form of the most product for the least money and ‘profit’ being a reflection of turnover. 
Winseer:
Inflation was historically friendly to workers. With a high inflation rate, getting a pay rise automatically linked to inflation meant that in real terms you at least stayed up to date. Debts shrunk over the years, as inflation eroded them away.For the past decade though - inflation rather than interest rates (which is merely a symptom of low inflation) has crashed, taking wage rises with it. Meanwhile, debts that one could once rely on inflation to erode - now stack up thanks to compounding, and the illusion that a low interest rate somehow “makes them more affordable”.
The low interest rate is key to debts continuing to be paid. Should they rise sharply, a lot of people are just going to throw in the towel. Rinse and repeat a few million times - and the bank itself goes under. Those savers who think they actually want super high interest rates right now - are talking through their collective hats - The higher return anticipated will be stripped out by the bank they save with going under… The first few might get bailed out under the “savers guarantee” from the bank of England - but as more and more banks fail - the Bank of England will just break it’s promise, and those savers foolish enough to leave their money lying around in UK savings accounts - will end up losing it all. A strong slide in Sterling will herald the final stages of this cycle of course.
No sign of such a slide as yet - but a lot of that is China deliberately weaking it’s own currency by bolstering it’s foreign reserves. In other words, they spend some of their vast wealth in stockpiling currencies around the world, including Euros and Sterling. This, in turn, keeps interest rates low, inflation low, and debts sky high. Workers will find themselves all on 7 hour (rather than zero hour) contracts - so that they get paid 7x£6.50 minimum each week - just enough to pay the £35 umbrella fee. The rest of the income that was topped up with tax credits - is now taxable. The Tories in scrapping tax credits and reducing household incomes for those on the minimum wage - have laid bare just how much near-Indian levels of poverty there are in this country without that safety net of in work benefits.If debts start to get defaulted now - it will be a good thing. Defaulting debts seems to be the ONLY way at present that the poor can claw back some kind of recompense from the idle rich who continue to bang on about how low their savings returns are.
Politicians tell ever more elaborate lies to try and cover up what will be inevitable - IF they don’t pull their finger out and come up with some seriously radical policies to stop the rest of the world robbing us blind. There are too many people in the world. We’ve not had a “dieback” for decades. Either nature destroys the excesses, - or we do via WWIII. The only “third” option would be to start migrating off the actual planet - rather than think migrating to a country on a dangerous downhill slope itself - is going to solve anything long-term.
As driver shortages are made up with lesser and lesser talent - the accidents, claims, & sudden yard close-downs will increase. CityLink going ■■■■-up last December is just the start of it.
There are a lot of other courier firms with pretty much exactly the same business model - get rid of waged staff, and move them onto self-employed contracts instead. Combine that with ever-decreasing returns pro rata - and a recipie for disaster is well under way.
No one seems to care about CityLink’s backers getting away Scot-free with the money, avoiding jail, and not even paying any personal taxes. Give this country a few more episodes like this - and we’ll be like Greece before the next general election.0
Truck and Driver mag still reporting on this “shortage.” As has been said already, the shortage is in crap areas of the industry like food service, builders merchants, dustmen etc.
A Hacklings driver asked me today about jobs on tippers. His take home on a class 2, day shifts on their Palletline contract is £300. Now this is where the shortage is.
Muckaway:
Truck and Driver mag still reporting on this “shortage.” As has been said already, the shortage is in crap areas of the industry like food service, builders merchants, dustmen etc.
A Hacklings driver asked me today about jobs on tippers. His take home on a class 2, day shifts on their Palletline contract is £300. Now this is where the shortage is.
The agency drivers fill the void. All truck’s have a driver in them, 99% of the time. Unless, there is no work for the truck.
Drivers are 10 a penny.
You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, you’re bound to get the hang of it, eventually.