Just drove past a petrol station, people are queuing up down the road, so yet again people are panic buying and hording petrol. I hate people.
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
- Thread starter Silva
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
You imagined it, it's not happening. Wave a flag - it's happening all over Europe - not.
But Twitter tells me it is happening in Europe too…
No matter how bad it gets, and this is only the beginning they'll never admit that Brexit is the cause.
Standard fare in Ethiopia, you'll get by.
Still waiting to see a single benefit of Brexit. All these fecking dolts that voted for this shite have so much to answer for.
It's not the cause but it's part of the problem.
According to some logistics bod on Radio 4 this morning the loss of Eastern European workers accounts for 25% of the shortfall. It's an issue that's been brewing for years and part of the problem has been the cheap labour that came from Eastern Europe which has enabled companies to engage in a race to the bottom when it comes the standard of driving jobs. Wages have been stagnent for years and working conditions are very poor. The sector has been unable to attract younger workers for a long time now because of this and the workforce has been aging as a result. What's happened since the pandemic is that there has been an exodus of older workers from the sector and new drivers have been unable to learn and get their license, although this won't be enough to solve the issue on it's own. There are actually enough HGV licenses in the country to cover the issue but not enough people want to take the jobs.
Brexit in and of itself doesn't even preclude labour supply from Eastern Europe. The whole point of the imigration policy as it was sold to the public was that it would be tailored to suit the needs of the economy. The Tories have made this strange political choice not to grant temporary visas to drivers from the EU, although I'd imagine they'll renege on this fairly soon.
There have been historical shortfalls of HGV drivers all over Europe for many, many years. All of Europe have Covid as well. if the EU workers have gone back to the EU then that helps reduce the vacancies for drivers in the EU. The HGV licence could apply to any country except that if you've only just passed your test you're not going to get insured usually for two or three years to drive a massive artic. Why would anyone who has been told he is unwelcome in the UK go back to get a job when according to the UK the rest of Europe are so short of drivers as well. Reducing the standard of tests is very dangerous, no other country is doing this.
No other EU countries have food shortages, no other EU countries have people queuing up for petrol.
And the real problems haven't even started yet, checking of EU goods and new UK standards are going to be a really serious problem amongst other things due to come into force between now and 2024.
Besides being a shitty job, with risks, with terrible schedules, with 0 family conciliation and low wages, a truck career is a death career. in a few years automation will make them obsolete
Now, blaming what is happening to Brexit as a whole is a mistake. It is happening worldwide (not only europe), is structural. No one wants this life or at least at these wages. as much as this is undeniable, is undeniable that Brexit made it more acute. If not we would seen replicating the fuel shortages and others in other countries that they feel the stress on the problem but not at those lengths. And talking about numbers, UK needs 90.000 drivers of the 400.000 needed in europe. Almost 1/4 of them being a being less of a 1/10 of the population
Now, blaming what is happening to Brexit as a whole is a mistake. It is happening worldwide (not only europe), is structural. No one wants this life or at least at these wages. as much as this is undeniable, is undeniable that Brexit made it more acute. If not we would seen replicating the fuel shortages and others in other countries that they feel the stress on the problem but not at those lengths. And talking about numbers, UK needs 90.000 drivers of the 400.000 needed in europe. Almost 1/4 of them being a being less of a 1/10 of the population
Surely the free market should kick into action here and a rise in drivers wages will result in a boom in the industry?
It's hard to unpick how much of the current problems are specifically down to Brexit, Covid causing supply bottlenecks, shipping issues, the energy crisis and CO2 shortage, structural problems in the haulage sector etc...It's a whole of shite all at once, but it's pretty naive to think Brexit is having zero impact. Add in the global microchip shortage and you can see how many dislocations there are within world trade at the moment though.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
The last 5 years really have been pointless haven't they?
It's one of these jobs that has a barrier to entry, the theories of pure free market don't actually apply.
The direct impacts on our lives so far, eg having to change pet supplies provider because they stopped shipping to the UK after Brexit, no doubt sound petty. It's more the intangibles, like reduced confidence in the asset management industry hitting advertising and therefore my employer's profits, with the obvious knock-on effect on wage rises.
That's before you even think about the losses to the exchequer which will impact all our lives when the government is spending and investing way less in public services and job creation.
The industry spokespeople I've heard speaking on recruiting from Eastern Europe in logistics, farming etc is that if the visa rules are relaxed then they can get people. I'd imagine they're in touch with agencies to be so confident. The money would be the main motivator for the workers. Those with the greatest need will pay the most money.
In the short term there’s too much logjam getting people qualified in time because the pandemic shutdown lessons and testing for about 18 months. In the medium term it should attract more workers and the industry hopes that it will force improvements in working conditions as well. The kicker will be that the cost of consumer goods will go up.
Boris is going to save Christmas again.
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...risis-tories-poised-turn-foreign-worker-visas
That was always the logical solution. Fair enough if you want to train local workers and fair enough if you want to encourage the salaries up (rightly so) but that clearly was not going to happen short term.
As always, idiots.
Why would they come to the UK. They can work anywhere in the EU. Heard a story about the UK giving a temporary visa to Ukrainian workers (just different non-EU East Europeans) who were employed picking fruit/veg in the summer, they were transported to the UK at the farmer's cost, paid high salaries but stopped working when they had earnt enough and they went on holiday and left half the harvest left ungathered.
Maybe I'm missing something here but the freedom of movement was stopped for factory processing staff, fruit/veg pickers, care workers, drivers, dustbin collectors, cleaners, in fact any job a British person didn't want to do, all these people were told they weren't welcome so they went back home or to another EU country.
Maybe some will be desperate for money but why would anyone do that apart from a similar job to students picking grapes in France.
Or because the UK couldn't give a stuff about these people and think they will come at their bidding and they can p!ss off again when they've finished.
Last edited:
Because that isn't how people think Paul. There are still literally millions of EU workers here in the UK. The wages here are still higher than in many EU countries. It's still the biggest English speaking country in Europe by far.
People regularly go to countries where the immigration system isn't particularly pleasant. I spent literally about 6 months and thousands of pounds getting my visa for Australia. They also have seasonal agricultural workers.
France and the UK have roughly equivalent population and economy sizes, I'm pretty sure France isn't suddenly going to absorb double the amount of workers from Eastern/ Southern Europe they usually do becuase they're all going there rather than the UK.
Honestly absolutely nothing so far, other than a stethoscope taking slightly longer to arrive than it might otherwise have done (4 days) and the fact I haven't seen my favourite ginger beer in the supermarket for a couple of months now.
My son has gone to Amsterdam for a little while though to be with some friends and he's going to have to come back soon as he can't stay more than 3 months without getting another type of visa.
More generally though, I guess it's still things like the ongoing embarrassment and anger at the situation.
There are a few differences - The UK is no longer in the EU. Of course there are seasonal workers , always have been. What does being an English speaking country have to do with it?
Another point is that the UK government is telling people the EU are suffering shortages as well so maybe other EU countries so maybe we can absorb more workers;
The direction keeps changing constantly anything, anything at all, but admit Brexit is the main problem. It's unbelievable. And it's not just Brexiteers.
Right but the initial point was that if the government decided to, it could open up temporary visas again for EU workers to work in those sectors. It's making a political decision not to.
Your response was that even if they did, EU citizens wouldn't bother coming because why would they come to the UK?
That English is the world language and most people grow up learning that as a second language? Making it easier to get a job in a country that speaks English, rather than having to learn a new language (this was a general point about immigration, not about fruit pickers or lorry drivers, who I imagine don't really need to use much language) .
I don't really care what the government is saying.
Don't really know what the last paragraph is about apart from you getting yourself into a huff as usual.
What? We're talking about the crap jobs , not highly qualified jobs but then you go on about speaking English which in the same sentence you admit they don't need to speak English.
I'm not in a huff, I'm so amazed and can't stop laughing at the mental contortions people do.
Yes why would EU workers return to Britain, before the pay and conditions were supposed to be crap , now they're wonderful and British people are so welcoming or perhaps they want an in depth conversation in English with a carrot they are picking whereas they couldn't understand what the french carrot was saying.
Have you seen the wages and signing on bonuses that are being offered to Class One drivers at the moment? That said, you could be right and they could be wrong. I guess we'll probably find out soon enough as the government looks like it's going to issue visas to EU workers.
Yes but that's not an instant solution nor is it a reason why they didn't pay people properly in the first place or other people say that the wages are amazing whereas french HGV drivers I know earn between 3k and 4k minimum so which is it, difficult to keep up with.
I don't agree with all of this but, my neighbour is talking about becoming a lorry driver in the UK and earning a lawyers salary. Truck drivers here from Eastern Europe won a court case to get the same pay as locals so this shows that eu countries are still practicing slave labour
IIRC, one of the problems for drivers is that with brexit border procedures are more time consuming which makes it not as interesting for them, on top of the pandemic being an issue. As an example many drivers do not take cargo across turkish borders because it takes too much time and apparently limits greatly the amount of cargo they can transport per weeks. So unless you are talking about exclusive intra-UK transport and that for some reason drivers would decide to limit even more the opportunity that they have to spend home, only a huge amount of money could convince most of them. Also I'm pretty sure that these drivers work for trucking companies, how many of them are self-employed?
What that means is the drivers are employed by an Eastern European Truck Company or Agency, he'll spend the week picking up loads and driving round Europe. Yes I Know that happens,
If the Uk were to be stupid enough to lower the standards of the HGV test then an HGV licence got in the UK would be worthless outside the UK.
Drivers employed by UK companies (because they are not in the EU) can only make one delivery to the EU and go back.
A lot of the demand is for domestic based drivers. I concede that you and Paul could be right and maybe we won't be able to recruit but it does look like we'll find out soon.
I think that you will find some but it's not as easy as politicians it's one of those jobs where it's not just about money because many of them already make good money. There is plenty of jobs in the EU for short haul truckers and it's not as good of proposition for long haul truckers if they have to cross a "hard" border.
The problem lies with the companies not entirely brexit, they had months of warning and could have employed their own drivers to pick up and deliver. But no, slave labour is where its at and I'm glad people are suffering.
There's slave labour everywhere in all low paid sectors not just in the Uk or the EU or the USA, anywhere.
The point is that if the UK hadn't left the EU they wouldn't have the shortages (or maybe there aren't shortages
)It's not that simple and not really about slave labour. It's a change of philosophy from long to short hauls, instead of having one driver that would get certain cargo from for example Rungis to its destination in the UK, the "Rungis" driver stops at or just after the british border due to the added time required and you then need a local driver to take the cargo from the border/warehouse to its destination within the UK/England. Now the issue is that there has been a lack of local drivers in the UK for years and it wasn't that big of an issue because being part of the EU meant that it was commercially possible for long haul drivers to compensate, now they can't/won't.
Things have changed and life is rebalancing, companies have found other markets than the UK, companies have grown massively since covid while a few have failed. Companies are employing outside of the eu because there is no one. The UK will have to adapt and they will. I see it here, pubs having to close because all their staff fecked off during lockdown and went to work at places like Picnic, an online supermarket with no actual premises that you can walk into and shop. Last time I looked at their site there were 150 vacancies and their openings are all in English promoting the fact they will rehouse you from anywhere in the world. Its great to see companies struggling to find staff, it empowers the employee. If you want to employ someone, your company will sort out all the paperwork for you. Times have changed mate, companies need to change too, mindset needs to change. The UK won't give up because it can't find a few Eastern europeansThere's slave labour everywhere in all low paid sectors not just in the Uk or the EU or the USA, anywhere.
The point is that if the UK hadn't left the EU they wouldn't have the shortages (or maybe there aren't shortages
We are just a thick nation, same thing happened with loo roll last year and it’s 100% happen again with the supermarkets next week.
That might work for a relatively simple end of chain supplier who delivers to the consumer or shops, but that doesn't help the multiple levels of logistics to manufacture the ingredients which go into the mixes which go into the finished products from hundreds of different suppliers. Those suppliers themselves have got the same problem.
But you're all bringing problems without suggesting solutions, hundreds of suppliers can be looked at as 1 individual supplier among the hundreds. You can also just give up and say 'not doable' which I think is what's happening.
Sometimes that might work, but I think you're really underestimating the complexity of the supply chain. You can't get one supplier to deliver 30 tonnes of chicken alongside, 5 different types of vegetables, herbs, sauces, packaging, flour and butter. All of those will have different storage conditions and the supplier needs to be regulated and prove traceability on each item.
I'm not saying it's not doable and these businesses are doing it which is why there is still food in the supermarkets. Some of it is being delayed and costs are far higher though.
Unfortunately there is no quick fix, the solution is to train more local drivers which from what I understand was and is the long term plan but the pandemic meant that it became difficult to do it at the required speed. The UK should be fine in a few months, maybe a year or two, the whole thing is going to be more expensive but it should work.
Cost higher fair enough, thats justifiable. Queuing for ages at the petrol pump will also raise prices, take public transport ffs. There is always a solution.