[Closed] What's so bad about a labour shortage anyway?

So, great idea let’s give everyone a pay rise but it’ll be offset by the increase of prices for everything, so back to where you started. The problem with the UK is chronic under-productivity, so unless those pay rises are matched with increased output it’s going nowhere. The more likely scenario is that it some areas they’ll simply invest in automation so those jobs will disappear - who needs truck drivers that need a rest every few hours when you can simply have a driverless vehicle. Of course the fact that this Government and quite a chunk of the population voted for Brexit which makes it even harder to sell to your neighbours as well as increasing the costs of everything we import, which is almost everything. COVID is creating a convenient smokescreen for the politicians right now, don’t expect it’ll last.

I predict that our labour shortages will soon be filled by our commonwealth cousins who will be more than happy to leave their homes that flood every year and work for a pound an hour and sleep in a tent.
Food picked, lives saved ,Tory tycoon profits up and Barry Brexit can go back to watching Strictly.

let’s give everyone a pay rise but it’ll be offset by the increase of prices for everything

It won't, though. We are talking about an increase in wages for a defined sector of the labour market, and labour isn't the totality of the total input cost for the goods we are talking about. Weird that the economy has been able to weather 30 years of pay rises for the top of the labour market with minimal inflation but if a shelf stacker gets a quid an hour more - we are DOOMED!

There probably will be more automation and low productivity jobs will evaporate. Maybe that's not a bad thing in an economy like ours that's apparently so fragile it falls over when there's an interruption in the foreign cheap labour supply.

The more likely scenario is that it some areas they’ll simply invest in automation so those jobs will disappear – who needs truck drivers that need a rest every few hours when you can simply have a driverless vehicle

Yep, long term expensive low skill jobs will just get automated / exported away eg labour intensive crops which can't be picked by machine will just be imported from countries with cheap labour and vanish from the UK.

I look forward to increased pay , for so long , workers have been screwed by successive govts , indeed most tesco workers get subsidised by the state , this is replicated across all sectors of so called service sector .
We don’t really do much heavy industry anymore , no ships are built commercially , steel is about to shut down , hell in a handcart .
Personally as a joiner our rates have been creeping up again but still below rates 20 years ago ......

A degree of labour shortage is good for workers, or at least the specific workers that have the shortage. A really big one, not so much. Like, truck drivers right now are in the headlines at last,for good reason- that's a shortage that's been growing for a decade and been completely ignored. But while individual drivers have a lot of flexibility and it should improve conditions, the same shortage is impacting massive numbers of businesses. Can't get your raw materials, can't get your product to market. It's even a headache for the supermarket stackers now having to spread out the same amount of product more thinly, constantly rearranging shelves to try and cover up shortages. Not healthy.

We need to train more people for unskilled jobs...no wait..

most tesco workers get subsidised by the state

Quite a lot public sector workers also have to rely on benefits, which is absolutely ****ing crazy, if a government pay it's own workers an adequate wage.

I'm lucky that I can afford to pay more for goods so that workers could have proper pay, but a lot of people couldn't.

The OP also misses the fact that it takes 9 months to get a full HGV license - pay alone won't see us through till next summer.

I spent almost my entire career within the engineering and manufacturing sector, including 16 years in one of the UK’s largest engineering companies. Almost every year we were in some sort of re-organisation or redundancy programme. In the later years I was doing cross-industry work with government on skills - having seen close-up those civil servants responsible for advising ministers it’s no surprise the country is a basket case - everything was about the ‘optics’ and parliamentary cycles, not about sustainable investment and improvement. The way that in-work benefits are used to subsidise workers wages for retailers like Tesco is no accident, it’s been deliberate government policy.

The OP also misses the fact that it takes 9 months to get a full HGV license – pay alone won’t see us through till next summer.

absolutely this

Referring to all these jobs as ‘unskilled’ is nonsense. It’s just a way to dehumanise people to excuse treating them like shit. What ‘unskilled’ seems to be shorthand for us ‘didn’t go to university’.

It’s not just a case of training people either. The average age of a lorry driver is 56. You can’t just magic 100,000 fully trained ones up from nowhere

Brexit (which was/is total idiocy) has brought to a head decades of policy where no employer was remotely interested in spending money on training their workforce and the state didn’t give a shit about it either

They still don’t

Increasing the pay of high wage jobs pushes up house prices as peoplemcan afford to compete with each other. This pushes up prices across the board and makes it harder for people on low wages to buy.

Pushing up low wage jobs is likely IMO to result in rent increases, because there is still a housing shortage, therefore the extra money will end up back with the rich people.

Investment in automation would be good, but what might happen in a global economy is that businesses will just move and the UK economy will just shrink to match the size of the smaller workforce.

Labour shortages don't magically produce a workforce capable of doing the jobs do they? So in the meantime things will just grind to a halt. And eventually we will have enough HGV drivers and fruit pickers to get back to where we started, hopefully.

You can't just import 100,000 truck drivers in overnight either. Big business isn't thinking about now until Xmas - they're thinking about the next 20 years, and they'd quite like a stream of pliant, cheap, insecure labour from overseas. If they come pretrained at the expense of someone else (thank you very much, Nigerian health sector!) so much the better.

What ‘unskilled’ seems to be shorthand for us ‘didn’t go to university’.

No, but you knew that already. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unskilled-labor.asp

No, but you knew that already

Er, your reference pretty much agrees with Binners!

Unskilled labor is generally characterized by a lower educational attainment, such as a high school diploma, GED or lack thereof, and typically results in smaller wages. Work that requires no specific education level or specialized experience is often available to the unskilled labor force.

It’s not just a case of training people either. The average age of a lorry driver is 56.

I am confident that it doesn't take 56 years to train a lorry driver so I don't see the point of that comment.

It does sound that it is very much a case of more training people.

Unless you are suggesting that it takes 56 years for someone to decide to become a lorry driver?

Big business isn’t thinking about now until Xmas – they’re thinking about the next 20 years

20 months if you’re lucky

they’d quite like a stream of pliant, cheap, insecure labour from overseas

One of the reasons for Brexit. We had people “from abroad” who could work here and still have all the rights the rest of us have. What some clearly want are for migrant workers to be tied to work visas, and be in fear of being sent home if they don’t except being teated as a second class citizen. No right for them to bring their families here. No right to switch to a better paid job with a different employer. Tied labour. It’s all some people think foreigners are worth. That’s why you now have Brexit loons like Tim Wetherspoons calling for visas for EU workers to staff his theme pubs. He doesn’t want to get rid of EU workers, he doesn’t want to replace them with higher paid UK workers, he wants to be able to employ people and treat them as poorly as he can get away with, where ever they were born. Brexit will not result in these employers treating their staff any better, or making they jobs pay a real living wage, they will screw anyone if they can get away it.

An interview with the Morrisons logistics chief was illuminating. What is apparent is that the daily hgv deliveries were essentially half full, they are switching up to deliver every two days and full.

This shows the costs of transportation were essentially too low, they were superceded by the costs if not doing a daily delivery. This clogs our roads and pollutes our air.

If the present issues make them relook at their systems and reduce journeys then we all benefit. Expect to see ads trumpeting these "green" improvements.

If driver pay and conditions improve then great. We might see an industry racing to the bottom improve.

What some clearly want are for migrant workers to be tied to work visas, and be in fear of being sent home if they don’t except being teated as a second class citizen.

This doesn't seem to be the policy of the Business Secretary. He's told them to hire and train UK resident workers.

Oh… had a chat to my haulage contacts (both by dad and uncle where drivers)… those being hired currently are being pinched from delivery companies (DPD etc) and agriculture etc. We’ll just be shifting people between struggling sectors over the next twelve months, and creating shortages elsewhere. My brother has had offers (he has an HGV licence) that sound like quite good money, but he likes what he does now… pay isn’t the only reason HGV license holders are resistant to step into the gaps left by people we’ve told to **** off.

This doesn’t seem to be the policy of the Business Secretary.

I didn’t say it is.

And it wouldn’t work anyway, not this year anyway. People won’t come. With our new attitude to EU workers, why would people come? Just go to another EU country and have full rights, rather than face discrimination and a hostile environment.

A shift to trying to fill gaps with migrant workers might come later, if we have a very bumpy winter, but I suspect the likes of the Wetherspoon man will be very disappointed if he thinks he’ll get his way anytime soon. He’ll have to stick to treating his UK staff abysmally instead.

I am confident that it doesn’t take 56 years to train a lorry driver so I don’t see the point of that comment.

What it suggests (applying a little foresight) is that a cliff edge approaches as the workforce retires (or dies in service). If the average age is 56 it implies there's a lot of folk older than this driving LGV's.

I am confident that it doesn’t take 56 years to train a lorry driver so I don’t see the point of that comment.

Are you being especially dense and/or Ccontrary at the moment?

It shows that there has been a failure to train enough UK lorry drivers for years, and it's coming home to roost now we can't plug the gap with foreign drivers. Plus a potential issue in the next few years with retirement and ill health.

MoreCashThanDash
Full Member

The OP also misses the fact that it takes 9 months to get a full HGV license – pay alone won’t see us through till next summer.

Also that we just don't have the capacity in place to rapidly increase the number of drivers. About 70000 drivers qualify a year, which is sometimes more than the replacement rate, sometimes less.

It took the best part of a decade to grow this problem, it's not going to be any faster to fix it.

I am confident that it doesn’t take 56 years to train a lorry driver so I don’t see the point of that comment.

it means that we’ve not been training enough lorry drivers for about 30 years

Not really rocket science, is it?

It shows that there has been a failure to train enough UK lorry drivers for years, and it’s coming home to roost now we can’t plug the gap with foreign drivers. Plus a potential issue in the next few years with retirement and ill health.

Just like the health service etc.
Why bother to invest in training your own population and pay them well when you can just "import" them fully trained from the originating (and let's face it often poorer) country's expense no matter the the detriment to them and their home country and keep pay rates down.
Bringing in cheaper overseas labour is a short term fix at best but should not be a long term strategy.

2 sides to this though, yes we've relied on cheap skilled Labour imports, it was easier than training and employing UK residents. We have under utilised Labour in the UK, but are those individuals ready to actively participate in productive work. The great Brexit experiment in action, probably not something envisaged but the Brexiteers.

it means that we’ve not been training enough lorry drivers for about 30 years

Not really rocket science, is it?

Look at what you said :

It’s not just a case of training people either. The average age of a lorry driver is 56.

It is a case of training more people. It doesn't matter if we have not been training lorry drivers for 130 years, the solution is still to train lorry drivers.

It's not rocket science.

FOM wasn't about cheap labour, was about flexible labour

Its why UK government never bothered to use powers they did have to return EU workers without jobs.

As ever its about long term investment, even 'unskilled' labour means training, huge investment in FE, apprenticeships, etc, instead we've seen the opposite of that.

On top of an ageing population I can't see us breaking our dependency on immigration anytime soon, nor will there be wage rises that wont outpace inflation for most and UK wages lag many other countries not just for unskilled workers but for skilled ones too.
NHS had 10% staffing shortage b4 brexit and nursing bursaries still aren't coming back.

We have under utilised Labour in the UK, but are those individuals ready to actively participate in productive work.

Indeed, as we have pretty much full employment, which Peter are we going to rob from to train to drive a HGV for Paul?

And by full employment, I mean those who choose to be in the labour market already are - of course, some may choose to enter the labour market if wages were higher.

TLDR Where are these unemployed folk that we are going to train as hgv drivers?

some may choose to enter the labour market if wages were higher.

That was exactly my point, there are a lot of people choosing not to be in the Labour market, does anyone really believe the unemployment figures after years of manipulation and changing of definitions. We also have an element of revolving door employment when we're at 'full employment', employers are desperate so will take who ever they can, doesn't mean some of those individuals are capable of holding a job down for more than a couple of months.

It is a case of training more people. It doesn’t matter if we have not been training lorry drivers for 130 years, the solution is still to train lorry drivers.

Great. Where do we get these 100,000 people from who are going to pay for their own HGV training? If we all start breeding in earnest now, they’ll enter adulthood and be ready for training in about 20 years

I know you’re an enthusiastic Brexiteer but even you might see the idiocy of telling tens of thousands of EU HGV drivers to **** off home without the remotest clue who was going to fill their jobs, that still need doing

HURRAY FOR BREXIT!

It’s almost like the morons who planned and supported this hadn’t really thought it through, isn’t it?

the solution is still to train lorry drivers

But you also have to make the job attractive so people actually want to train to do it. And you have to make sure there are enough people to train to do the job as well as do all the other things that need doing.

Binners has a valid point, it's not lack of available labour, it's a about who is going to pay for the training. There actually aren't that many truly unskilled jobs any more, traditional unskilled labour like the docks, construction and warehousing all require more skills and qualifications than being able to move a heavy load from A to B.

who needs truck drivers that need a rest every few hours when you can simply have a driverless vehicle

Simply?

Business Secretary and all round Brexiteer dimwit Kwasi Kwartang has already made it quite clear that the government has no intention of providing any funds for training

More joined up thinking from the vote leave morons

Binners has a valid point, it’s not lack of available labour, it’s a about who is going to pay for the training.

But you also have to make the job attractive so people actually want to train to do it.

The fact that there might well be problems associated with training HGV drivers doesn't mean that training drivers isn't a solution.

The average age of 56 for a HGV driver is irrelevant. It doesn't make training more drivers a less valid solution.

Or should we get the average age down before considering training more drivers?

I was trying to point out that providing trainers and examiners isn't *the* solution as suggested earlier - it's a required part of the solution.

This doesn’t seem to be the policy of the Business Secretary. He’s told them to hire and train UK resident workers.

That might work eventually for HGV drivers but how do we 'train' people to pick fruit and pack meat? The wages would have to get a lot higher to encourage enough UK workers to do it IMO.

The average age of 56 for a HGV driver is irrelevant. It doesn’t make training more drivers a less valid solution.

No, but it suggests we’re currently not doing enough of it. How do we train 10 times as many over the next two years than the past two? And where do these people come from? Who does the jobs they leave? Who pays for the training?

[ Not cancelling the HGV training programme for those leaving the forces on medical discharges would have been wise. ]

Why haven’t we been training these drivers we need over the last five years we have been “planning” to end FoM?

providing trainers and examiners isn’t *the* solution as suggested earlier

Was that suggested?

I responded to the dismissive attitude towards training more HGV drivers because apparently the current average age is 56. I can't see how that's relevant.

It’s relevant because it is an indicator that we have not been doing the thing you (and everyone else) say we should have been doing.

how do we ‘train’ people to pick fruit and pack meat?

You don't, you have to decide whether higher wages as an incentive or reduce benefits as a stick is the appropriate approach. As usual in reality it's a combination of both. Set the minimum wage at a liveable level (which is about controlling the costs of living as much as increasing basic income levels) and then control who is eligible for benefits. The difficult bit is deciding the last bit.

Lack of new HGV drivers is also as much about the lack of HGV tests for new drivers because of COVID,30,000 missed last year and also the change in tax status of drivers rather than the EU/Brexit issue. Shortage of drivers means they can now turn down the sh**y jobs with the terrible hours and cr*p pay.My cousin is an HGV driver and relocated to Spain years ago for better conditions. My brother in law worked for a HGV distribution company until a few months ago.Drivers were just turning cr*p jobs down or not turning up as they now know they can get better paid work elsewhere. One could say the market is resetting itself.Consumers may have to start paying more so the workers can get a decent salary,shock horror.