Are lorry drivers (or lack of) having an effect on any of your regular supplies?

[Dan]

HGV driver shortage: UK firms embark on the long road to plug the gap

Logistics sector ups its recruitment and training effort but big obstacles lie ahead

www.theguardian.com

Food, beer, toys, medical kit. Why is Britain running out of everything?

Poor pay and conditions for HGV drivers and the loss of many thousands of EU workers are plunging the UKs supply chain into crisis

www.theguardian.com

Minister urges firms to invest in UK-based workers in HGV driver shortage

Business secretary reported as saying foreign labour only offers ‘temporary solution’ as companies face supply chain crisis

www.theguardian.com

I keep reading news, hearing on radio and seeing on telly that the lack of lorry drivers is having more and more of an impact on our daily lives and wont stop any time soon. I was wondering if any of you guys and gals have felt this with suppliers running out of anything you use regularly?

Heard anything through the grapevine?

Started to stock up on basic things you use often to help get around this over Christmas etc?

 

[DPG]

That's a huge task and I'm not sure if any government will accomplish it, short of us encountering a protracted period of severe economic depression. Just look at the stink kicked up when the £20 lift in UC came to an end and that was only a temporary measure. There seems to be an expectation that everyone is entitled to a significant amount of money and the private sector simply doesn't have broad enough shoulders to sustain this. I honestly don't know what the answer is.

That's what annoys me - the media and labour keep going on about the 'nasty Tories' cutting universal credit, when it was always clear that it was a temporary increase. It's not a cut at all.

And don't forget, it's us hard workers that fund people on benefits. Obviously I know benefits are essential to some people, but don't we all know people who sponge off the state when they could easily be working? I know I certainly do.

 

[Zerax]

Fair proportion of factory workers had to claim UC to top up wages.

You need to be careful quoting things like this as the claiming of UC is largely a game of playing the system. I've just worked out that if you work in a factory full-time... and get minimum wage with a little bit of overtime/shift allowance etc... you can take home £1,618 per month. I currently live off alot less than that.

The problem comes with if you have dependents (as they are a benefit multiplier) when you're able to claim far more in benefits than you'll earn from a factory job... hence the numbers from my previous post.

 

[Zerax]

That's a huge task and I'm not sure if any government will accomplish it, short of us encountering a protracted period of severe economic depression. Just look at the stink kicked up when the £20 lift in UC came to an end and that was only a temporary measure. There seems to be an expectation that everyone is entitled to a significant amount of money and the private sector simply doesn't have broad enough shoulders to sustain this. I honestly don't know what the answer is.

Yeah... I agree... the country is basically run my the media... which is predominantly left wing (the BBC being a prime example). So any effort to curtail the vast welfare state is met with severe, media induced frenzy. The Blair/Brown years introduced the 'entitlement culture' which is almost impossible for us to get out of. How do you tell someone that's had something for 20 years that they are now no longer entitled to it ??

Even things like the current panic buying frenzy of petrol/diesel is largely being billed by the media as a failure of government or a consequence of Brexit or a lack of tanker drivers... when in reality it's caused by the media banging on about a fuel supply crisis !! We still have the same fuel supply as we've had for years... and we still have the same fuel usage that we've had for years... the difference is that a load of selfish idiotic morons have decided that they need to keep their car filled to the brim... or fill up every single container they have with spare fuel !!

 

[nicebutdim]

I currently live off alot less than that.

When figures are quoted for average wages, I suspect the self-employed are not included. I've had plently of times when earning minimum wage would have been like living the life of a millionaire and a huge number of self-employed often fall through the cracks (conveniently for both sides of the argument).

 

[UNG]

We need to reduce the level of benefits to make working for a living viable again... I saw a programme on the TV a while ago about a single woman with kids complaining that she couldn't live on benefits (without actually telling us how much she got)... so I did my own research, filling in an on-line system called something like "what am I entitled to.com". I was astonished to see that to get the same level of net income, she'd need to have a job paying £37k per year. The TV programme didn't divulge any details on her skills... but assuming she was not skilled... there's no way she'll ever come off benefits to work in a factory !

I've seen this a few times where work doesn't pay them enough to come off benefits they are on and they still claim they are living in poverty the other side of it is they don't have to waste any energy going to work and earning a days pay if they are on benefits

Not sure we have the population to fill these gaps. Fair proportion of factory workers had to claim UC to top up wages. Wages will have to go up but even then I suspect there will be a short fall in labour. Government will have to relax the immigration rules, probably in line with EU border control rules which we chose not to implement back in 2004. Also likely we’ll do conditional trade arrangements with other countries around the world which will allow immigration to fill labour shortages. Here comes a period of big inflation. Boris and his mates don’t really want to see any dents in their profits or any real levelling up.

I'm not sure a lot of European countries have enough people of working age to fill all their vacant jobs after listening to and reading various media reports

 

[FatAlan]

Food banks are prospering in my area. No empty shelves or logistic issues in the EU.

 

[nicebutdim]

Food banks are prospering in my area. No empty shelves or logistic issues in the EU.

Shortage of several hundred thousand drivers between Germany, Spain and Poland. No idea about the other 24 member states, but those three alone prove that the EU is most certainly experiencing the same issue on a grand scale.

Perhaps their media are not so heavily politicised or perhaps their media's politics fits with that of current governments.

 

[FatAlan]

Shortage of several hundred thousand drivers between Germany, Spain and Poland. No idea about the other 24 member states, but those three alone prove that the EU is most certainly experiencing the same issue on a grand scale.

Perhaps their media are not so heavily politicised or perhaps their media's politics fits with that of current governments.

So in the EU they are having supply issues and panic buying at fuel pumps? Exactly the same issues as here.

 

[UNG]

So in the EU they are having supply issues and panic buying at fuel pumps? Exactly the same issues as here.

You really need to dig deeper for your news, Europe doesn't want to air it's problems if it can avoid it while it rides the brexit wave blame game for all the UK's problems

 

[FatAlan]

Shortage of several hundred thousand drivers between Germany, Spain and Poland. No idea about the other 24 member states, but those three alone prove that the EU is most certainly experiencing the same issue on a grand scale.

Perhaps their media are not so heavily politicised or perhaps their media's politics fits with that of current governments.

I think they’re about 400k drivers short in the EU. But 400k divided by 27 with the added luxury of free movement means they’re able to react and adapt to issues more easily.

 

[UNG]

I think they’re about 400k drivers short in the EU. But 400k divided by 27 with the added luxury of free movement means they’re able to react and adapt to issues more easily.

So every EU state has just over 14,800 drivers spare I very much doubt it

 

[FatAlan]

You really need to dig deeper for your news, Europe doesn't want to air it's problems if it can avoid it while it rides the brexit wave blame game for all the UK's problems

So what benefits do we have due to Brexit? I hear there’s a shortage of child minders now and the government is looking to relax vetting your get more women back to work. What price the safety of your child? Fruit rotting in fields, no staff in slaughter houses so farmers destroying livestock. Fishing industry being bailed out by government £300m a year. Haven’t seen any benefits yet.

 

[nicebutdim]

I think they’re about 400k drivers short in the EU. But 400k divided by 27 with the added luxury of free movement means they’re able to react and adapt to issues more easily.

They don't have fuel shortages, because they don't have a load of idiots panic buying fuel. They do have a shortage of HGV drivers and I've already highlighted where this shortage is most acute and stated that I am unable to comment on the situation in the other 24 member states.

While free movement is well and good, it's unlikely that any one member state will send drivers to plug shortages in other member states as this would worsen their own situation.

The UK does not have a fuel shortage, but it does have a shortage of fuel at many filling stations, brought about by aforementioned media induced panic buying. Have you stopped to consider why this suddenly became an issue when fuel stocks haven't dipped, nor the shortage of drivers worsened?

 

[FatAlan]

So every EU state has just over 14,800 drivers spare I very much doubt it

Not sure where you get spare drivers from? 400k drivers short divided by 27 is slightly less than 100k. They’re still short of drivers but nowhere near as much as the UK.

 

[FatAlan]

They don't have fuel shortages, because they don't have a load of idiots panic buying fuel. They do have a shortage of HGV drivers and I've already highlighted where this shortage is most acute and stated that I am unable to comment on the situation in the other 24 member states.

While free movement is well and good, it's unlikely that any one member state will send drivers to plug shortages in other member states as this would worsen their own situation.

The UK does not have a fuel shortage, but it does have a shortage of fuel at many filling stations, brought about by aforementioned media induced panic buying. Have you stopped to consider why this suddenly became an issue when fuel stocks haven't dipped, nor the shortage of drivers worsened?

I’m not a haulage expert but I suspect many of the main European haulage companies operate across many of the EU states with no border issues moving around from job to job. This used to happen in the UK. Agree re the media induced panic buying started by that BP report that it was restricting supplies.