1) Foreign agency drivers
The ‘perfect storm’ of a moderate recovery in the UK economy coupled with an ageing driver workforce (add in the Driver CPC deadline in September if you like) has led to a shortage of truck drivers put at 45,000 by the RHA.
So if the UK’s supermarket shelves were not empty and the presents were all delivered and under the tree by Christmas Eve where did all the drivers come from? Chances are a good number were foreign agency drivers shipped in from southern and eastern Europe, once again riding to the UK’s rescue when the industry failed to respond to a widely predicted driver shortage.
It is arguably not the operators’ fault that too few new UK resident drivers have come into the industry since 2007 – haulage rates have been so low that training budgets were slashed and drivers’ wages squeezed to the point few entrants see the value in spending £1,500 of their own money getting a licence.
Was Christmas 2014 a short term blip or the start of a long term rise in wages and rates that will see an end to the driver shortage in 2015? Answers on a postcard please…
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