Bang on...
A lot of the truck stops closed last year due to Covid so drivers were left to find food and drink elsewhere. I'm told that facilities for drivers are often out of the dark ages.
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HGV Driver shortage
- Thread starter Newchodge
- Start date
A lot of the truck stops closed last year due to Covid so drivers were left to find food and drink elsewhere. I'm told that facilities for drivers are often out of the dark ages.
but what is the point in running a business just to buy yourself a job .
I have never really understood this supplying though a Ltd umbrella when your only making a basic wage . Different story for those invoicing big money
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- Original Poster
- #43
It is, in that the supermarkets are offering much higher pay because they can. The haulage firms that are tied into tight contracts cannot afford to do that. Anyway, it doesn't resolve the structural problems. The grinding down of pay and conditions for drivers has led many to leave the industry and it takes a long time to bring a new driver in, plus the training and licensing costs. Job adverts are still for trained drivers, not for trainees.
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- Original Poster
- #44
The point is that the employers do not want the responsibility of employing people. They will not offer jobs, but only contracts. Originally directly, which was seen as great by the employees who thought they could get away without paying proper tax (although many couldn't count and forgot the value of holidays, pensions, employment protection etc), but when that became dangerous because of official moves against disguised employment it had to go through 3rd parties. 3rd parties, naturally want their cut.
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- Original Poster
- #45
Presumably you don't do supermarket shopping online.
They offer the service because the others do. The first one to end it would lose huge numbers of customers to competitors and ultimately it may even out, but it would be a huge risk.
They do have a minimum order Tesco is £40, which I think is pretty standard.
They do have a delivery charge, either a charge per dlot which varies with the popularity of the day and time, or a season ticket - pay x per month for unlimited deliveries. I pay Tesco £6.99 a month. I believe new customers pay more but I have been using them for a long time (pre-Covid) and they have not increased the price for existing customers.
The benefits to me are huge:
transport costs - when I started I didn't have a car so took the bus there, did a huge monthly shop and paid for a taxi home. Now I have a car I would have gone more than once a week, so big transport cost savings
time and convenience - start the shopping list every week to reserve the slot and add to it as I think of things needed. You can't do that in a supermarket.
spending - no impulse buying, because you only see what you are looking for. For me, this is the biggest saving and it must be costing the supermarkets a fortune. They are trying to get round that by inserting various offers and enticements - it takes about 5 screens to check out as they try to get you to buy more, but it is easier to ignore online than instore.
If Tesco withdrew this service I would go elsewhere, even if I ended up paying more because I hate (and always have hated) supermarket shopping.
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Its a misuse/oversimplification of studies showing that immigration increases average wages of the existing population. If you are someone directly competing with immigrants for the same jobs it pushes your wages down, but other people get higher wages from moving up to more skilled jobs. Its somewhat like being better off because you can hire a cheap immigrant cleaner, or being a cleaner who has to cut their rates to match them
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That does not make economic sense: it is "never mind the profit, think of the turnover" thinking.
It might make sense if people showed a tendency to buy more offline from the same supermarkets they bought form online. It seems unlikely to me.
To the point where they are better off not being able to do the work and fulfil the contracts? I do not understand how that could happen. Imgaine you are running a business in that position. You do not have enough drivers at your pay level, so you leave the vehicles idle and tell your cutomers "sorry we cannot do the work"?
That is exactly why supply is inelastic and pay should be shooting up. If people need driver to deliver stuff now, they have to pay the trained drivers more.
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Several years ago I got an intro to finance tipper trucks for ex employees who had been made redundant and were being offered umbrella "jobs"
The employer/not employer even did their business plan and projections for them - which looked pretty healthy
As ever, I pitched in with some questions starting with "what happens if they don't pay bang on 30 days?"
A few questions in, it looked a lot less appealing
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I see a major problem with this the smaller operators sub contracting to the big companies really struggle to get their rates up . I actually think that some of them are scared of the customers
and would not dare to negotiate an increaseie in the middle of the night you will see different tractor units towing for the big parcel companies . (that type of thing) but as I said the margins are low and in many cases wont get any better meaning that terms and conditions will remain poor
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D
Deleted member 59730
Why this assumption that the supermarkets don't make a profit out of deliveries and click and collect? They make a stonking profit. I can remember when Tesco online, before the days of Amazon, was the number one website for profit in the world. It was followed by a Spanish language homework site. I can understand its appeal. It allows customers to do their shopping in their bosses time.
Even if it was not making a profit they would still need it to get rid of all their short dated fruit and veg.
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They probably make the profit on the people spending £200 a time and who just go in and buy the same things every week without even looking at the prices.
I have 2 deliveries a week, usually spending between £40 and £50 a week unless there are particularly good offers on and I stock up (washing powder, dishwasher tablets, cat food , etc.)
I tend to have 2 browsers open at the same time, one at Sainsburys, one at Tesco and buy from the cheapest.
Things like Clover you usually find one will have it on offer so buy it from there, where as the other store might have something else on offer so buy from there.
I go for the cheapest delivery slots
I'm probably their worst type of customer
Edit to add: One bad thing though, I haven't received any good Sainsburys voucher for 18 months
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I'm not sure the removal of impulse sales is good for the broader food industry?
If you are talking about throwing a chocolate bar in your basket at the checkout that you wouldn't otherwise have bought then fair enough, but an awful lot of impulse buys relate to new products, the sort of thing you'll see wheeled out on Dragons Den. Artisan brands that you wouldn't look for online but would be encouraged to buy if presented and packaged well for in store display.
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I've often fantasied about just that, most typically after a hellish day when staff have let you down and a million and one things to do. Scaling back to just me and having in effect a "job" but no boss as it were, running my own "job" in which case. Sounds like bliss? If you are at a point in life where you've already earned a decent wedge and don't need to earn the big money then I can see the appeal, substantively so in fact. I do what I do to earn the big money, the compensation has to be high to run a business IMO.
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The tax still works out cheaper even when added to accountants fees operating this way. I presume accountants set their rates to make sure even if earning 30 or 40 k you're still better off.
Like has been said though I think a lot struggle to allow for all the benefits they'd get paye.
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D
Deleted member 59730
Oh no!
Fake butter spreads are far worse than butter. There is a graph showing the consumption of butter in the US going way down and the consumption of soft spread oils going way up. Guess which one the rate of heart disease followed 5 years later?
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The problem is made worse by the fact that people think they are too good to drive a lorry these days. When I was at school the ( how do I put this nicely?) 'academically challenged' kids knew they were probably going to end up driving a lorry, laying bricks or getting a job as a 'sales executive', and were happy to do what was required to earn a living.
These days the academically challenged kids are going to be social media influencers, or go on some reality TV show for those with no shame and make it big.
It's the same with most menial jobs, us Brits are far too important to do them any more (but we are happy to complain when Eastern Europeans are happy to come and steal the aforementioned positions from under our noses).
These days the academically challenged kids are going to be social media influencers, or go on some reality TV show for those with no shame and make it big.
It's the same with most menial jobs, us Brits are far too important to do them any more (but we are happy to complain when Eastern Europeans are happy to come and steal the aforementioned positions from under our noses).
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That wasn't really my point; I was thinking back to school and thinking what various groups of students did after school. I remembered one lad went on to do a bricklaying course, one wanted to drive a lorry, and a couple went to work at a local double glazing firm who were well known for giving literally anyone a job, and then giving them a phone book with the instruction "phone as many as you can and see if they need new windows", hence my examples.You really don't appreciate sales people do you?
You could replace sales with any other unskilled occupation and my point would stand*
*I'm pulling your leg.
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That wasn't really my point; I was thinking back to school and thinking what various groups of students did after school. I remembered one lad went on to do a bricklaying course, one wanted to drive a lorry, and a couple went to work at a local double glazing firm who were well known for giving literally anyone a job, and then giving them a phone book with the instruction "phone as many as you can and see if they need new windows", hence my examples.
You could replace sales with any other unskilled occupation and my point would stand*
*I'm pulling your leg.
There's no doubting a decent education can give you a leg up but being academically challenged quite often means you are a late developer or simply have other goals.
A mate who everybody said was a fool to leave school to become a Hod Carrier - which paid very well back then, learnt to lay bricks, bought a Ford Mustang when we were all driving old bangers and is easily worth a few million now.
One of the qualities of being academically challenged is that you are often too thick (skinned?) to see what could go wrong.
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There must be a shortage a company near us is offering up to £52,000 pr anum if you are prepared to do tramping.
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It's very much my goal
Having co-owned & run a large brokerage with staff, branches etc I now run from home with no staff and overheads below £500 a month.
I have partnered with a large brokerage with all of the above hassles for marketing, admin, compliance etc.
In reality, nobody else is ever going to do things entirely the way you would like (better or worse are highly subjective), but it does give me a fairly high degree of freedom.
However, my business isn't one where I have to turn up to be paid. As a driver, with the overheads of a vehicle and everything that goes with it, the freedom element is marginal
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Has that changed? I think its just shifted from acting in telly or films, or sports to social media etc.
There may be some trutth in that but the main problem (from an employers point of view) is the same as with the drivers: the Brits want to be paid more or have better working conditions for those jobs.
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D
Deleted member 59730
I am old enough to remember reading the same in the fifties.
Do you know how old automation is? Its very nearly 100 years old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_George_Woollard gives a useful read.
( self interest... Frank Woollard was my father's step uncle. I never met him but did know his daughter who taught at the Art College in Birmingham at the same time I was a student.)
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I am reviewing distribution for one of my clients, and last week received a quotation including a 'Driver supplement' which will be in force 'until the labour situation normalises' (A bit like the fuel supplements which were also introduced until the price situation normalised..... )
<QUOTE>
The driver salary base rate is £12.00 per hour. If in any Trading Period during the Term the driver salary base rate has to be adjusted to react to market forces, then (SUPPLIER) shall apply either a surcharge or credit (as the case may be) to the Charges relating to Distribution Services for that Trading Period, based on driver cost representing 35% of such Charges.
Example : The driver salary base charge is calculated as: (A-B)/B x 35% x C where for any Trading Period:
<QUOTE>
The driver salary base rate is £12.00 per hour. If in any Trading Period during the Term the driver salary base rate has to be adjusted to react to market forces, then (SUPPLIER) shall apply either a surcharge or credit (as the case may be) to the Charges relating to Distribution Services for that Trading Period, based on driver cost representing 35% of such Charges.
Example : The driver salary base charge is calculated as: (A-B)/B x 35% x C where for any Trading Period:
- A is the driver increased salary which (Company name) may have to pay in future to attract and retain drivers;
- B is the base driver salary namely £12.00 per hour;
- C is the Charges relating to all Distribution Services.
</QUOTE>
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Stupidly low rate, exactly what this whole situation is caused by. Aldi have increased their driver rates again to remain the top supermarket payers, to help with recruitment and retention.
To give an idea I help a friend out on the weekends driving a small van, and get more than that, on bank holidays his rates, for all his drivers goes to over £17 hr. His HGV drivers are on a fair bit more.
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I did some relief driving around 10 years ago, in between projects.
I did it mostly for the fun of it, to be fair, but the wages were minimum wage, and I had to buy tacho discs.
It wasn't too bad, in many ways, once you were on the road. Until the day I got delayed in a massive traffic snarl up, and received a major, and very sweary, rebuke from some supervisor bloke who felt I should have found a miracle solution to the traffic problem. The other drivers confirmed that this was his usual style and it was best to ignore him.
It sounds as though the money has improved moderately. But I suspect shouty supervisor is still there. Since there I spent my down time (if I get any) sitting on a beach. It pays less well. But it is a better way of relaxing.
I did it mostly for the fun of it, to be fair, but the wages were minimum wage, and I had to buy tacho discs.
It wasn't too bad, in many ways, once you were on the road. Until the day I got delayed in a massive traffic snarl up, and received a major, and very sweary, rebuke from some supervisor bloke who felt I should have found a miracle solution to the traffic problem. The other drivers confirmed that this was his usual style and it was best to ignore him.
It sounds as though the money has improved moderately. But I suspect shouty supervisor is still there. Since there I spent my down time (if I get any) sitting on a beach. It pays less well. But it is a better way of relaxing.
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Cannot see why more don't take up HGV or any other driving job
- Lose your licence for minor infringements of the highway code
- Even though you check your vehicle at the start of day, you get fined for a broken light after 200 miles
- Timed deliveries and if missed there your fault even if 100+ miles away
- 5 nights away from home
- loss of licence then find a new occupation
- massive gaps between rest area along with driving time limits
- Tracked by remote employer looking for heavy breaking, acceleration or any other fault
- They told you the weight of the goods. but pulled over for 1 ton overweight, your fault
- Great pay packet £12 hour working. no pay for being night watchman
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They do however have to be able to cope with shifts and staying alert
I had a nr neighbour who was a PC, realised he was never going to make a decent rank and was getting too old to be hopping walls. As in a prior life he had cleaned trains he had a lapsed trackside safety certificate, when SWT were hiring 7 or 8 yrs ago he applied and got the job on the grounds he could also show his body could cope with shifts and staying alert. After he had done his couple of years of that on nasty little suburban routes he shifted to GWR on the Penzance/Paddington route which does pay the money you mentioned, moved to the end of a branch line into Plymouth getting a huge house for what he flogged his little 3 Bed in Berks for and is happy.
Wouldnt envy him the trauma that comes with your first jumper though - it really does some peoples head in (he has cleaned up the mess when he was a PC so knows what to expect)
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