Who has taken them!

[Spectric]

Everytime the news comes on all I seem to hear is that we are short of 100,000 lorry drivers, how can you lose so many that quickly. Did they all retire at once, abducted by aliens, laid up with long covid or what?

If it had been a slow process of loss then surely alarm bells would have been ringing at say 20,000 short and by 50,000 it would have been a national issue so either they have all vanished at once for some reason or we have a country that is out of control and in freefall, who waits until 100,000 short before raising the issue and Brexit cannot be held accountable for this one unless they were all French in disguise!

 

[Sandyn]

Fake news perhaps? It would only take a very small number of the correct HGV drivers to cause a problem with fuel delivery, then the media get involved and Jeremy Vine and panic buying starts making the problem look much worse than it might have been.

 

[Richard_C]

There's a BBC radio programme called "More or Less" which delves into numbers in the news. You can get it on BBC Sounds. There are 2 versions, a 9 minute one on World Service and a c. 30 minute weekly one on Radio 4. Very neutral politically, properly researched.

You need the episode broadcast on 1 September 2021. About 11 minutes in if you don't want the whole programme. And no, 100,000 isn't a total surprise (spoiler alert) nor might it be 100,000, but there is a real and significant shortage.

 

[jcassidy]

Not fake news as such, just lazy journalism reaching for a good headline.

Anyway, my money is on the aliens abducting them.

 

[julianf]

Everytime the news comes on all I seem to hear is that we are short of 100,000 lorry drivers, how can you lose so many that quickly. Did they all retire at once, abducted by aliens, laid up with long covid or what?

If it had been a slow process of loss then surely alarm bells would have been ringing at say 20,000 short and by 50,000 it would have been a national issue so either they have all vanished at once for some reason or we have a country that is out of control and in freefall, who waits until 100,000 short before raising the issue and Brexit cannot be held accountable for this one unless they were all French in disguise!

You realise that many EU drivers were no longer welcome to operate in the UK when "freedom of movement" ended?

Hence the issuing of the temporary visas to band-aid the issue.

I thought this was common knowledge, or am i miss understanding your question?

 

[Spectric]

Are you saying that we employed 100,000 foreign lorry drivers and then just kicked them out, that is again just showing we are without planing or leadership.

 

[MikeK]

This is a gentle reminder...if this thread becomes a political or BREXIT discussion, it will be closed without notice. Normally, such threads would be moved to the Off-Topic II forum, but only one participant in this thread has requested access for that forum.

 

[flying haggis]

This whole "shortage " fiasco is down to Rod McKensie from the RHA overhearing a BP person talking about a few filling stations not getting deliveries as expected. Rod who is ex BBC then phones up his mates a t the BBC and starts the whole panic buying thing off with lies about there not being enough tanker drivers. The BBc then run with the story and as usual they will never let the real facts get in the way of a good story especially if they can spin it to be somehow the fault of brexit. As there were enough tanker drivers two weeks ago what has changed? Prople panic buying is what has changed. When garages sell in a day what they normally sell in a month, how can the supply chain keep up? it cant because they expect to deliver on a regular basis .

If the companies that Rod McKenzie claine "to represent" had taken on and trained in house rather than rely on cheap foreign labour we/they wouldnt be in this mess. So really all the companies who claim to have driver shortages have only themselves to blame.

 

[Fitzroy]

For me it's another example of why the lean economy is great in times of stability but is much less resistant to stress overall. Out economic model has pushed every part of the industrial chain to carry as little fat as possible. We use model based forecasts to order the next batch of X for delivery just as we need it. But any fluctuation that is out of the norm (like everyone panic buying) throws the whole thing into turmoil. This perturbation flows through the supply chain, and into other supply chains as our industries are so integrated.

To reset the system needs some time where everyone pauses all activity, which will never happen when the general public is involved. To quote MIB "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. "

 

[selectortone]

I'm really disappointed with the BBC. On Monday they were saying all day that the fuel issue was caused by 'a shortage of HGV drivers'. It wasn't. Nothing had changed from the week before when a handful of petrol stations of one supplier were having problems - that were being addressed within 24 hours. The shortage of fuel was caused by panic buying whipped up by the BBC's own incorrect and irresponsible reporting. Talk about self-fulfilling prophesies! Meanwhile ambulances are being caught in gridlocks around petrol stations, people are missing hospital appointments, nurses and care staff are worried about getting to work and all the rest. All entirely unnecessary. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

 

[AdrianUK]

BBC were certainly more balanced than Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5, so called journalism at its worst.

 

[Fitzroy]

The more sensational, the more clicks, the more reactions (thumbs up or thumbs down it doesn't matter), the higher up the social media chart it goes, the more ad revenue it develops the bigger the bonus of the reporter. Oh we seem to have developed the perfect feedback system for biased reporting to flourish in.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

If as reported the average age of an HGV driver is 55, it seems likely the origin of the shortages goes back 15-20 years (at least).

One would expect the average age to be 40-45. Why - assuming people start driving HGVs in their eary/mid 20's and retire from the age of 60 onwards (health can be an issue)

Conclusions:

• the country has failed to train enough new drivers for 15-20 years
• overseas recruitment of trained drivers is cheaper and quicker than in house training
• fairly full employment over the last 20 years means potential HGV drivers have had numerous alternative career paths open
• poor working conditions and unattractive pay levels would act as a barrier to entry for all but the enthusiatic

We now have a predictable merry-go-round blame game:

• the consumer seeks low prices - transport is a part of the cost
• retailers search out lowest cost providers
• haulage companies try to reduce costs - drivers form a significant part
• all blame government - an easy target, albeit mostly unjustified in a free market, although DVLA seem completely dilatory in processing licence renewals etc.

Brexit and covid may simply be the straws that broke an already failing situation. Resilience for critical services costs money (spare capacity etc) which can't then be spent on other things.

 

[RobinBHM]

Everytime the news comes on all I seem to hear is that we are short of 100,000 lorry drivers, how can you lose so many that quickly. Did they all retire at once, abducted by aliens, laid up with long covid or what?

If it had been a slow process of loss then surely alarm bells would have been ringing at say 20,000 short and by 50,000 it would have been a national issue so either they have all vanished at once for some reason or we have a country that is out of control and in freefall, who waits until 100,000 short before raising the issue and Brexit cannot be held accountable for this one unless they were all French in disguise!

alarm bells have been ringing, the Road Haulage association has been warning the govt for years.

brexit is the Thing that has tipped a systemic problem into serious chaos.

 

[RobinBHM]

The more sensational, the more clicks, the more reactions (thumbs up or thumbs down it doesn't matter), the higher up the social media chart it goes, the more ad revenue it develops the bigger the bonus of the reporter. Oh we seem to have developed the perfect feedback system for biased reporting to flourish in.

brexit damage is massively under reported….due to biased reporting, BBC is scared of this govt so it can’t report honestly.

leaving the Single Market has left this country with a broken just in time integrated supply chain.


The fuel crisis is largely panic buying and shouldn’t be confused with supply chain chaos across food and other industries.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

brexit damage is massively under reported….due to biased reporting, BBC is scared of this govt so it can’t report honestly.

leaving the Single Market has left this country with a broken just in time integrated supply chain.


The fuel crisis is largely panic buying and shouldn’t be confused with supply chain chaos across food and other industries.

Are you absolutely sure that a global pandemic with complete economic shutdown had nothing to do with it whatsoever? Not even a little bit?

 

[Sandyn]

Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5, so called journalism at its worst.

Ah!! the Jeremy Whine show!! To say it's Journalism at is worst is paying it a compliment!

 

[doctor Bob]

brexit damage is massively under reported….due to biased reporting, BBC is scared of this govt so it can’t report honestly.

It's the way you tell em I think the BBC are farcical on all fronts, but there can be no doubt about the political leaning of the majority of news presenters.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Had to laugh at the ITV local news last night. They spent some time interviewing people and visiting petrol stations showing and stating that in general there was no shortage or crisis. A few minutes later they handed over to the National news to “hear more about the fuel crisis”

 

[Richard_C]

There is bound to be some shortage simply because of lockdown. I think I read that there are c 700,000 drivers. If 5% leave each year (retire, move on, etc) you need 35,000 to keep up. During lockdown there was no hgv driver training and no tests for many months, I think testing took a long time to come back on stream. If it works out as a 12 month hiatus and the industry can't replace leavers then there is a shortage. During lockdowns full and partial net demand probably fell: lots of activities we didn't or couldn't do including filling our cars to get to work or go on trips, restocking high street fashion stores, etc etc. although home delivery boomed. Now demand is back 'plus some'. So part of the shortage must be covid related, the rest a mix of long term decline in numbers and the unmentionable B word.

I wonder, and its a genuine wonder, what effect rules on intra-country working have had. Under EU rules, any carrier (and airlines are a good example) could trade between any 2 points - a Norbert Detressangle truck could have come to the UK with French goods, drop them in (say) Leeds, take a UK load from Leeds to Dagenham, then a return load to France. But now we are no longer in the EU I don't think they can do that middle bit - UK to UK - and maybe that affects capacity.

I do have one partial answer. One driver - one truck so it makes sense to have the truck as full as possible. I'm sure schedulers are very good at that, it's the way to make the whole system affordable and profitable. But what does full mean? Capacity is limited by weight and volume.

You can't do anything about weight - a ton of bricks is a ton of bricks - but if you look around a supermarket you realise a lot of volume is just air. Stop shipping air. Sugar Puffs minus the puff. Corn, not cornflakes. Ban pasta that has a hole - spaghetti fine, penne is space inefficient. Suck the gas out of bags of crisps. Trebor mints, no Polos. As for the ambassadors Ferrero Rocher, pass them between heavy rollers and sell them as slabs. Marsh, without the mallow. Gouda good, emmental bad (space wasting holes). Nice cuboid choc ices, no wasteful delicate cornettos. I bet we can save 40% of the lorry trips to supermarkets, and there must be other ways to save space on a whole load of goods.