adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 15, 2021 10:05:30 GMT
Todays government solution is now to bring all the european hauliers in Not quite. "Bring the Europeans in" was the visa solution weeks ago. That failed miserably. This solution is to roll back the changes to cabotage that happened with Brexit. A European driver who comes over can now do some loads within the UK again, like they could last year, before going back. Bring a load from the continent to <say> Birmingham, have a load to go back from <say> Reading. Do some loads in between, or run empty? Of course, if the problem wasn't actually caused by Brexit in the first case, and was simply because there aren't enough truck drivers anywhere, then neither of these solutions will make the slightest difference, right...?
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Oct 15, 2021 11:32:55 GMT
Was listening to Sky news last night at about 10:45 and one of the interviewees said there were 300,000 people in UK with HGV licences, who had given up driving and weren't inclined to return. He described the current situation as 'that which Brexit intended'. Instead of uncontrolled access, we pick and choose who we want to let in.
On the shortage theme, over the last 3 or 4 weeks there has been a severe shortage of birdies on the golf course, but plenty of choice at the bar or in the supermarket.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 15, 2021 11:56:17 GMT
Was listening to Sky news last night at about 10:45 and one of the interviewees said there were 300,000 people in UK with HGV licences, who had given up driving and weren't inclined to return. I know three people who would fall into that category - all within the decade below state retirement age, all left driving about a decade or more ago. One retired early after being badly beaten up for his load of vegetables while overnighting in a layby. He now lives on a narrowboat, doing casual work as and when needed. The other two left because of health issues. (One moved from Yorkshire to Scotland to run a B&B, has a Belgian wife who had a shedload of problems getting settled status despite having lived and worked here for decades, and is a firm advocate of Scottish Independence as the best way to get back into the EU...) All of them love their current lives and none of them miss truck driving in the slightest... There is no way you could tempt any of them to go back. I suspect they're representative of a very large swathe of that 300k.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Oct 15, 2021 12:11:49 GMT
One thing I really struggle to understand with the government's current messsaging (ie changed goalposts, again) about a "high wage, high skill, high productivity economy" is who's going to *&^"£*&^"*£&^%*"$ well pay for it? Because the requirement for people to work in (what are perceived as low skilled low value add) industries doesn't go away. We still need the lorry drivers and the carers etc. I've no argument at all with those who say pay and working conditions in the current pain point industries ie haulage, abbatoirs and social / long term care massively undervalue the people who work in them, but we struggle to pay them appropriately as is. And I have no idea how driving a lorry or wiping an old person's bottom could become more skilled or productive. Do the same for more money = less productive. Like so much else this government trots out it's... incoherent  . EDIT: As if on cue - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58921498 |
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Oct 15, 2021 12:52:59 GMT
One thing I really struggle to understand with the government's current messsaging (ie changed goalposts, again) about a "high wage, high skill, high productivity economy" is who's going to *&^"£*&^"*£&^%*"$ well pay for it? Because the requirement for people to work in (what are perceived as low skilled low value add) industries doesn't go away. We still need the lorry drivers and the carers etc. I've no argument at all with those who say pay and working conditions in the current pain point industries ie haulage, abbatoirs and social / long term care massively undervalue the people who work in them, but we struggle to pay them appropriately as is. And I have no idea how driving a lorry or wiping an old person's bottom could become more skilled or productive.Do the same for more money = less productive. Like so much else this government trots out it's... incoherent . EDIT: As if on cue - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58921498And lets add people whose job it is to butcher thousand of cattle/sheep/pigs. Do you think its ok to just say "...well I'm not paying any more..." so the people that do these jobs have a slightly higher standard of living ? Ultimately, jobs are paid according to supply and demand and not directly the skills of the worker. If people don't want to do a job their salaries will rise and their goods/services will rise too meaning the consumer will pay more. "Oh that's terrible" I hear the liberals cry - "why can't we just import some more from from poorer countries to do out  jobs?". If you think about it I think that is what you are saying even though you probably don't feel like that at heart.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Oct 15, 2021 14:11:56 GMT
That wasn't really what I was driving at michaelc . And I mentioned abattoirs. Anyway, let's play with some imaginary numbers:- 1. Assume an HGV driver is currently on £40k a year. Assume an increase in that to cover the all-in costs of a) increased salary and b) better working conditions and that doubles to £80k a year. What productivity improvements can the haulage industry introduce to cover the cost of doubling the salary of its workforce? If it can't, that's not a productivity improvement, and those costs will be passed on. 2. Assume somebody working in an abattoir or a chicken processing factory is on £18k a year. To make that revolting job palatable we need to double that salary to £36k a year. What productivity improvements can the meat processing industry make to cover the cost of doubling the salary of its workforce? Are we going to ask teachers / nurses / policemen, bus drivers etc etc to pay twice as much for a pack of bacon? 3. Assume a social care nurse (?) is on £24k a year. To attract and retain qualified staff in those roles we need to pay them commensurately. So we double the salary to £48k a year. What productivity improvements can be introduced to double the effectiveness and efficiency of those nurses? If that can't happen then the cost of social care will have to increase to compensate. And we already fail to pay the national costs of social care adequately, for social care that is in and of itself already inadequate. Where's the money going to come from? What's going to happen when the shelf-stacker, the hairdresser or the taxi driver decides to become an HGV driver? Are we going to correspondingly increase salaries for those jobs too? * Where are these vaunted productivity gains going to come from? * In the absence of those productivity gains, when those costs are passed on how are normal people going to pay for them? * How are we going to deal with a bout of sustained inflation all round until we get to some kind of "new normal"? * How are we going to cope with enormous labour shortages, and further labour market disruption, as people jump between industries, until we reach that "new normal"? I have zero doubt that there is plenty of room for productivity gains across the country and its economy. I have seen zero evidence that this government has a clue - it's like Javid trotting out an extra £250m for GP services the other day. There aren't any more GPs to hire to meet the resourcing needs of the current demand, and they take seven years to train! He described GP's as "underperforming". That's "underperforming" whilst carrying out more consultations (including some 60% of them face to face), during an epidemic, whilst they had limited PPE, had to deal with their own illnesses and staffing issues, and they managed to perform 70% of the vaccinations in the country. Off the back of decades of underinvestment. {insert rude word of choice} idiots. (not aimed at you or any other forumite) I look forwards to another decade of supply shortages, industry disruption, and increased costs all round. Not. It makes me so furious I can't even speak (which might come as a relief to some of you  ). |
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Oct 15, 2021 14:28:37 GMT
That wasn't really what I was driving at michaelc . And I mentioned abattoirs. Anyway, let's play with some imaginary numbers:- 1. Assume an HGV driver is currently on £40k a year. Assume an increase in that to cover the all-in costs of a) increased salary and b) better working conditions and that doubles to £80k a year. What productivity improvements can the haulage industry introduce to cover the cost of doubling the salary of its workforce? If it can't, that's not a productivity improvement, and those costs will be passed on. 2. Assume somebody working in an abattoir or a chicken processing factory is on £18k a year. To make that revolting job palatable we need to double that salary to £36k a year. What productivity improvements can the meat processing industry make to cover the cost of doubling the salary of its workforce? Are we going to ask teachers / nurses / policemen, bus drivers etc etc to pay twice as much for a pack of bacon? 3. Assume a social care nurse (?) is on £24k a year. To attract and retain qualified staff in those roles we need to pay them commensurately. So we double the salary to £48k a year. What productivity improvements can be introduced to double the effectiveness and efficiency of those nurses? If that can't happen then the cost of social care will have to increase to compensate. And we already fail to pay the national costs of social care adequately, for social care that is in and of itself already inadequate. Where's the money going to come from? What's going to happen when the shelf-stacker, the hairdresser or the taxi driver decides to become an HGV driver? Are we going to correspondingly increase salaries for those jobs too? * Where are these vaunted productivity gains going to come from? * In the absence of those productivity gains, when those costs are passed on how are normal people going to pay for them? * How are we going to deal with a bout of sustained inflation all round until we get to some kind of "new normal"? * How are we going to cope with enormous labour shortages, and further labour market disruption, as people jump between industries, until we reach that "new normal"? I have zero doubt that there is plenty of room for productivity gains across the country and its economy. I have seen zero evidence that this government has a clue - it's like Javid trotting out an extra £250m for GP services the other day. There aren't any more GPs to hire to meet the resourcing needs of the current demand, and they take seven years to train! He described GP's as "underperforming". That's "underperforming" whilst carrying out more consultations (including some 60% of them face to face), during an epidemic, whilst they had limited PPE, had to deal with their own illnesses and staffing issues, and they managed to perform 70% of the vaccinations in the country. Off the back of decades of underinvestment. {insert rude word of choice} idiots. (not aimed at you or any other forumite) I look forwards to another decade of supply shortages, industry disruption, and increased costs all round. Not. It makes me so furious I can't even speak (which might come as a relief to some of you ). I actually agree with a lot of that. Particularly the stuff about the government being incompetent. I agree also that why should there suddenly be huge productivity slack that we can tighten up. I'm no economist but I assume prices will rise as a result of this and I agree all of this is bad for us consumers. But we definitely should be mindful of it being too convenient to have a lovely latte served by a lovely polish girl or more to the point having your relative's a** wiped mostly by foreigners. Do we want get to a place like Saudi where all the terrible jobs (ALL of them) are done by slaves from the Phillipines, India and other countries? I'm sure you don't but there is a tension between these two arguments. All I'm saying is we need to be mindful of that. Its NOT a case of "them bloody foreigners taking our jobs" IMO. Its having certain nations being well over-representing in certain sectors that I don't like.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Oct 15, 2021 14:34:09 GMT
No argument with that  . (though I do miss the lovely Polish girl  ) |
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mogish
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Post by mogish on Oct 15, 2021 15:03:51 GMT
.....and breath.
Off to lidl to get a few bottles of wine.... if they have any in stock.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Oct 15, 2021 15:27:17 GMT
That wasn't really what I was driving at michaelc . And I mentioned abattoirs. Anyway, let's play with some imaginary numbers:- 1. Assume an HGV driver is currently on £40k a year. Assume an increase in that to cover the all-in costs of a) increased salary and b) better working conditions and that doubles to £80k a year. What productivity improvements can the haulage industry introduce to cover the cost of doubling the salary of its workforce? If it can't, that's not a productivity improvement, and those costs will be passed on. 2. Assume somebody working in an abattoir or a chicken processing factory is on £18k a year. To make that revolting job palatable we need to double that salary to £36k a year. What productivity improvements can the meat processing industry make to cover the cost of doubling the salary of its workforce? Are we going to ask teachers / nurses / policemen, bus drivers etc etc to pay twice as much for a pack of bacon? 3. Assume a social care nurse (?) is on £24k a year. To attract and retain qualified staff in those roles we need to pay them commensurately. So we double the salary to £48k a year. What productivity improvements can be introduced to double the effectiveness and efficiency of those nurses? If that can't happen then the cost of social care will have to increase to compensate. And we already fail to pay the national costs of social care adequately, for social care that is in and of itself already inadequate. Where's the money going to come from? What's going to happen when the shelf-stacker, the hairdresser or the taxi driver decides to become an HGV driver? Are we going to correspondingly increase salaries for those jobs too? * Where are these vaunted productivity gains going to come from? * In the absence of those productivity gains, when those costs are passed on how are normal people going to pay for them? * How are we going to deal with a bout of sustained inflation all round until we get to some kind of "new normal"? * How are we going to cope with enormous labour shortages, and further labour market disruption, as people jump between industries, until we reach that "new normal"? I have zero doubt that there is plenty of room for productivity gains across the country and its economy. I have seen zero evidence that this government has a clue - it's like Javid trotting out an extra £250m for GP services the other day. There aren't any more GPs to hire to meet the resourcing needs of the current demand, and they take seven years to train! He described GP's as "underperforming". That's "underperforming" whilst carrying out more consultations (including some 60% of them face to face), during an epidemic, whilst they had limited PPE, had to deal with their own illnesses and staffing issues, and they managed to perform 70% of the vaccinations in the country. Off the back of decades of underinvestment. {insert rude word of choice} idiots. (not aimed at you or any other forumite) I look forwards to another decade of supply shortages, industry disruption, and increased costs all round. Not. It makes me so furious I can't even speak (which might come as a relief to some of you ). Maybe some of the people getting paid huge amounts for jobs they love to do should take a pay cut, so that those doing the jobs they wouldn't dirty their hands with get a sensible wage. The people at the bottom of the heap don't usually contribute a huge amount to the final costs on the shelves it's all the big boys taken their cuts that makes the biggest contribution to the price. I don't know how many items an individual HGV driver would deliver to supermarkets in a year but I would bet doubling his wages would add coppers to the prices of those items on the shelf.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 15, 2021 15:45:57 GMT
That wasn't really what I was driving at michaelc . And I mentioned abattoirs. Anyway, let's play with some imaginary numbers:- 1. Assume an HGV driver is currently on £40k a year. Assume an increase in that to cover the all-in costs of a) increased salary and b) better working conditions and that doubles to £80k a year. What productivity improvements can the haulage industry introduce to cover the cost of doubling the salary of its workforce? If it can't, that's not a productivity improvement, and those costs will be passed on. 2. Assume somebody working in an abattoir or a chicken processing factory is on £18k a year. To make that revolting job palatable we need to double that salary to £36k a year. What productivity improvements can the meat processing industry make to cover the cost of doubling the salary of its workforce? Are we going to ask teachers / nurses / policemen, bus drivers etc etc to pay twice as much for a pack of bacon? 3. Assume a social care nurse (?) is on £24k a year. To attract and retain qualified staff in those roles we need to pay them commensurately. So we double the salary to £48k a year. What productivity improvements can be introduced to double the effectiveness and efficiency of those nurses? If that can't happen then the cost of social care will have to increase to compensate. And we already fail to pay the national costs of social care adequately, for social care that is in and of itself already inadequate. Where's the money going to come from? Of course, numbers one and three simply cannot easily increase productivity. Number one, the HGV driver - he simply cannot legally drive longer hours, or put more in the truck. Could he spend less time unloading? Well, possibly, but would that have a knock-on on his driving hours? And is that up to him, or up to the people with the forklifts? A community care worker cannot spend less time with each person. They should be spending MORE time... They cannot shorten the time they spend travelling between people. Should more people be moved out of their own homes and into residential care settings...? As for number two, a chicken processor could process more chickens in an hour. Possibly. But would that have a knock-on on the quality of the finished product? Would the production line equipment be able to allow it without an expensive refit? Or the driver of the bin wagon decides to use his HGV licence to drive general haulage...
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Oct 15, 2021 15:57:57 GMT
Of course, numbers one and three simply cannot easily increase productivity. I mean there are productivity improvements to be had. GP tele-consultations are an example. The old girl I shop for? She's having her second knee replacement at the end of October and the post-op physio sessions are going to be carried out remotely. I didn't even know that was a thing! Less commuting, more video conferences, better insulation, more green energy, more local produce consumption, more efficient boilers, better targeted healthcare, more preventative healthcare, more recycling, less packaging, less use of cash, open banking, big data, and any number of other ideas. And sure, to Greenwood2 's point, we could likely fire a good percentage of the "consultants" and "managers" (not to mention politicians) and redeploy them more productively (though I'm not sure how they'd feel about it). And massive economic disruption might bring about productivity gains in some areas directly as a result of that disruption. Though it's not costless. Or painless. But there's no magic productivity wand, and that's particularly the case in the industries feeling the most pain at the moment .
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Post by crabbyoldgit on Oct 15, 2021 16:51:25 GMT
looked on indeed for hgv1 tramper driver jobs in southwest. 4 days on 4 days off, 12 hr night driving shifts sleeping in the cab day time rocked by every passing truck , ear plugs to damp the noise in some grotty layby . Washing = wet wipes ,toilet = bucket and chuck it, meals microwave. £50000 a year not exactly , £13.50 an hour plus £20 a sleep out . Wonder why drivers have voted with their feet in their thousands.
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mogish
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Post by mogish on Oct 16, 2021 8:01:17 GMT
looked on indeed for hgv1 tramper driver jobs in southwest. 4 days on 4 days off, 12 hr night driving shifts sleeping in the cab day time rocked by every passing truck , ear plugs to damp the noise in some grotty layby . Washing = wet wipes ,toilet = bucket and chuck it, meals microwave. £50000 a year not exactly , £13.50 an hour plus £20 a sleep out . Wonder why drivers have voted with their feet in their thousands. Spot on. Spent most of my life in transport. Wages have hardly increased in 15 years.cist to move a pallet or parcel is no more expensive now in real terms than years ago. The rates quoted are real life hourly rates, to make a decent living drivers often spend at least an hour loading and unloading at the depot each day to make up the wages, working 60 hrs per week. Tanker drivers or trampers may get more but it's only young guys who want to live away from home. Eventually loses its sparkle. Ultimately if transport wants to attract young blood then the consumer will need to pay for it.
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mikeb
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Post by mikeb on Oct 17, 2021 15:31:00 GMT
profiteering all over. Todays government solution is now to bring all the european hauliers in , very short sighted and not solving anything longterm apart from minimising grief with potential xmas shortages. All this will do is cut the throats of UK hauliers. My belief is that we have had cheap haulage/parcel delivery so long now that business and public refuse to pay any more , leading to poor pay rates for drivers , no new industry recruits due to the poor wages , hauliers terrified to pass on increased charges to custiomers for fear of losing business. Maybe the governent should think a bit longer term and get freight on rails rather than on road. I'd agree with that and in the interests of greening the economy Royal Mail, DHL etc should certainly not be flying parcels about within the UK But the issue is people have come to expect instant service, I sell on eBay in my Postage it says Dispatch within 2 working days ( was one but with covid I went to 2 so was going out less often ). I offer first or second class postage at different prices. In the last fortnight I've had one guy who purchased after 6pm complain the next day that his post had arrived and the item hadn't arrived, another who purchased on a Saturday afternoon complaining that it didn't arrive on Monday. Interestingly both chose the second class option. Take comfort in the fact that it's not just you. I set "2-3 working days" as my despatch time (time between payment and shipping), although in practice, if it's paid evening, or by first thing in morning, it's posted in the morning (next/same day). On the plus side, my feedback shows lots of "faster than expected, quick despatch" happy comments, even though 2nd class post for 99% of items Unfortunately, someone bought an item from me that was big-heavy, which went by 3-5 day courier (Collect+ Economy) as stated in listing, and they somehow imagined that it would be delivered 2 days after payment. Wednesday afternoon: Buyer paid, so packed, and dropped at drop-shop 30 minutes later, but after "pickup window". Thursday: Courier picked up, and moving, tracking shows where it is. Friday: "Where is my item?" -- in transit, tracking shows where it is. Saturday morning: Tracking shows "at destination delivery office" -- buyer -- "It is not here, and the post has been, so it will not turn up until Monday at least now!" -- had they looked at the tracking it would show the item was actually delivered while they were battering out capital letters and exclamation marks on eBay messages ... sigh ... then complained the courier left it outside. Maybe, answer the door when expecting a courier, not sit hunched over a keyboard fuming over your alternate reality? You can't fix stupid. You can block and report such buyers ... they are a blight on eBay.
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jobs?". If you think about it I think that is what you are saying even though you probably don't feel like that at heart.
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