Neil Moors wrote:This will become quite the political issue. The Brexit dream was always to replace foreign workers with British ones - but the British workers don't exist.
Well, according to today's FT, for the right remuneration (and all the Yorkies you can eat) - they do! "Lewis Judd will be joining a new post-Brexit army of homegrown truck drivers that the UK haulage industry has been forced to train since an acute driver shortage closed petrol forecourts and emptied supermarket shelves in 2021. Two years on from that crisis, industry leaders and logistics trade bodies report that the crisis has triggered a restructuring of the driver industry leading to higher costs and wage increases of 20 to 30 per cent above pre-pandemic levels, but also a steadier pipeline of younger British drivers.
"Judd, who until a few weeks ago was a window cleaner making £10.50 an hour on a zero-hours contract, can now expect to earn a steady £30,000 a year after he qualifies, rising to £40,000 if he is prepared to do weekends and overnight trips.
"Paul Day, the managing director of Turners Soham, a Cambridgeshire trucking company with 2,500 lorries, who has also trained up many of his own drivers having previously relied heavily on drivers from the EU, said driver supply had stabilised — but with side-effects. “The cost implications of huge pay increases have spilled over into maintenance engineers,” he said, explaining that many mechanics already held HGV licences for moving trucks round the yard, so then went back on the road when wages spiralled in 2021. “It’s forced up the wages of mechanics so transport costs have increased significantly in the last two years."