this is what i dont understand maybe im lucky as i was working in warehousing so i could talk to other drivers. I went and found out the lay of the land spoke to other agencies. Ok they lied to me and said work would be no problem but the point is i did research before i got a loan and forked over the best part of 2k.
I realise with the boot camps etc etc people aren’t having to spend their hard earned so its a little easier to have a easy come easy go attitude.
And also, it’s really immaterial how many people hold a truck licence. If new passes can’t get a job because of insurance criteria, if a good percent of licence holders are unemployable and as useless as a one legged man in an aSs kicking competition, then there’s the ones who get their licence in the forces then leave the forces and won’t touch truck driving, then there’s the older drivers who have had enough of the game, then there’s the ones who try it and don’t like. So many learners on the road doesn’t give a true picture of the state the haulage industry is in.
Yes, I see that a lot too, there’s a few who get very angry about it too, acting as if it was someone else’s “fault” that they decided to take their truck test 
There are plenty of yards that’ll take on “new passes”, but very few agencies that will allow new passes to side-step the “must have 2 years experience” requirement, even at the same time as saying “6-9 points on licence OK”…
If you ARE working for a discounted hourly rate - I would suggest PART TIME hours, as you’re compounding your own losses otherwise…
Eg. if you’re working for £2ph under the “going rate” - you want to be doing 25 hours per week rather than 50+… 50+ means you’re losing £100 compared to the guy working next to you… 25 hours a week - cuts that “loss” in half, as well as gives you more back on say, working 3 shifts instead of 5-6 shifts per week (less commute overhead)
“What you don’t lose/waste - buys the same as what you earn/win”.
You don’t have to pay taxes on “Shaving £££ off an overhead” - neither!
Excellent fiscal advice there. So you’re suggesting that a guy working for £2 an hour under average and working 50 hours to earn £600 should actually only do 25 hours and earn £300 because that way he’s “only” losing £50 as opposed to £100?
Fantastic, there’s a spot at 11 Downing Street beckoning you there Warren Buffet 
Look who posted that nugget, TNUK’s #1 economist. (Do we have a sarky emoji? )
I did work with someone once who previously had quite a well paid IT job (may have been contracting IIRC). The admin job he was in, he essentially only wanted to work part-time hours because after he had used up his tax-free allowance he figured it wasn’t worth his while doing extra hours and getting taxed on what he saw as a paltry hourly rate. I suppose if you have a massive nest egg to fall back on that is okay.
…A shortage of agency drivers willing to work for Travis and Perkins? 
They reckon the EU needs 500,000 drivers urgently & are looking at third world drivers to fill the HGV driver shortage.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/eet/news/eu-needs-500000-drivers-urgently-truck-and-coach-companies-ask-meps-for-solutions/
That article has a tagline under the first photo:
“There are currently 2.7 million professional drivers in the EU, which is 500,000 less than the amount needed”
It may be that we have 2.7 million people with an HGV entitlement (or two) on their licence, but there’s a (large?) proportion of those who are not now, and are not likely to be in the future, actively driving an HGV. I’m one of them. So whatever the rest of their article may claim, they’re starting off on a false premise which undermines any conclusions they may arrive at.
More directly, and limited to the UK only, I regularly meet a variety of Transport Managers from all around my area, they never complain they can’t find someone with an HGV entitlement on their licence, but they do say that it is hard to find people they would be happy to employ.
For me, and the people I have contact with, THAT is where any alleged “shortage” lies. And, at the risk of incurring any backlash, but speaking from direct personal experience, I know that a third-world driver would be highly unlikely to fall into that “happy to employ” category; ignoring the massive issue of race, there would be the issue of professional competence (they would need to take and pass the UK HGV test), language & communication skills, work ethic etc.
Most of that article is about what the road transport industry is asking for.
Not about what the EU is doing.
No-one is suggesting upping salaries for drivers? Reducing expected hours?
It notes that a third of drivers are over 55.
There is trouble coming down the road.
Absolutely! I’m sick to death of hearing people bleating about a supposed driver shortage. As Zac succinctly pointed out there are multitudes of qualified HGV drivers who have absolutely zero intention of ever driving commercially.
It seems that the driver shortage bull is a myth perpetuated by those such as training providers and agencies with vested interests.
If there was a driver shortage then perhaps the sheer crapness of the job should be looked at and some remedies sought.
I’ll not hold my breath.
Pay and conditions?
Apparently the industry doesn’t think so.
I don’t think that any driver would object to a pay rise obviously, but I’d go out on a limb and say that a lot of drivers are content with what they bank each week/month. However, and it’s a big however, we’ve all heard drivers crowing about earning a grand a week, to which my answer invariably is “no you don’t, you earn £500 a week, but you do two weeks worth of work every week “.
Conditions now are something that I think we all agree are shocking. Fuel thefts, lack of facilities etc etc etc all don’t help, but I personally think that RDC’s and their treatment of drivers must shoulder a large part of the blame.
I no longer work in a sector where I am required to hand my keys in or be corralled into a holding area and after roughly 15 years of it I was shocked at how “normal” that seemed to me. It’s only now that I realise how utterly soul destroying that experience was.
So (and I have no proof of my theory) I think horrible conditions are putting off more drivers than wages are.
And breathe.
I see very little evidence of driving being put forward as a career option where the training is at all structured.
For the majority of companies recruitment consists of asking for full licence, CPC and digicard already in place.
It is usually down to those with a bit of initiative to get the necessary themselves and then apply in the hope that someone will give them a chance. It isn’t any wonder that drivers tend to be a bit older, because the young are hardly likely to put themselves through their HGV licence without some assistance.
I note some young blood coming in now, but for a young person, starting at an ungodly hour and working for 13-14 hours isn’t going to appeal to those wishing to have a half decent social life / time for activities.
Of course there will be plenty retirements coming every year. Some will be voluntary but inevitably some will be forced. All of those need replaced it is true.
“Driver shortage” is a soundbite promoted by the previous government, created as an ill-conceived, (and I assume) Whitehall-originating, response to what was happening during the pandemic.
It has since be repeated ad nauseum by a multitude of unthinking individuals working at the white-collar end of the industry: DfT, Logistics UK, RHA, CILT, EOS, and Uncle-Tom-Cobley-and-all on Linked In.
I work in association with an established Training Provider, they (and the various Agencies) merely deal with the effects of the above, they have no influence, and no more of a vested-interest than does a driver who turns up to work on a Monday morning for his first shift of the week.
Training Providers aren’t on “an easy number”, especially those delivering truck training (a veritable money pit), other things like DCPC categorically are not the huge Cash Cow most drivers believe them to be.
My associates are simply doing what they can to adapt to changing circumstances; getting rid of vehicles and surplus DCPC trainers, and increasing the “compliance” side of business (ER audits and other consultation services).
I know many will instinctively reject those assertions, especially those with little-or-no interest/experience in the “boring” segments of our industry (Business & Company Law, Industrial Relations, Financial Management, Commercial Conduct of Business, Business Taxation, etc)
EDIT: I agree that conditions, pay too, are utterly unacceptable for the 21st Century.
However, part of the problem is the “old school”, not only accepting 15 hour days, but arguing until they’re blue in the face to defend their rights to maximum hours and minimal rest periods, being vocally opposed to the notion of Unions, instead saying “drivers should stick together” yet being unable to organise the proverbial party in a brewery.
A soundbite perhaps indeed promoted by the previous government. A quick google search shows that when the previous government were in opposition to Blair’s government they too were critical of of Labours soundbite politics in relation to the drivers shortage.
Cyclical really isn’t it? All rather pointless name calling too when I wouldn’t trust a single MP regardless of party.
Politics, like most things, tends towards the lowest common denominator, so it’s arguable that the public gets what the public wants (The Jam, Going Underground)
Today’s electorate have knee-jerk reactions to soundbites from politicians; gone are the days when many working class people were intelligently politicized, and could hold detailed discussions of the various aspects of the politics of their time - See Episode 1 of the acclaimed drama series Our Friends in the North as a great example of how I remember things from my youth.
Today we have (as Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy rapped)
“Sound bite politics served to the fastfood culture”
I agree with both Maoster and Zac on this.
But to come to this from a diffferent angle for a minute…
There is a shortage of drivers as such, but that shortage pertains to what I call ‘proper’ drivers.
There is no shortage however of a selection of f/wits and dingbats who have managed to blag a Class 1, car drivers with a hgv licence…
(got to say that this also shows up the DCPC as something that has not worked in terms of professionalism, but that is another argument for another day.)
So saying that, why do employers, (or most employers), not get this?
If I was still employing drivers in this present climate, I’d be showing appreciation widely to anybody I considered a ‘proper’ driver.
I don’t want a kiss and an embrace at the yard gates when I rock up for work, or a counselling session after a puncture 
, I’m meaning all this meaningless b/s like in cab cameras, charging for damage, and being treated after 15 years the same way as somebody with a weeks service…as a schoolkid with ridiculous rules.
When I worked for Euro firms, they had a 2 tier system…sounds familiar 
.
If you had been there a while and proved yourself, you were treated accordinglly …which brings me back to the ‘reap what you sow’ (from both sides btw) adage.
So basically stop treating us somewhere between schoolkids and sh on their shoes, andcthen you will attract better quality drivers,.and attract new drivers.