Innovation

Responsibility

Leadership

Tesco offers lorry drivers £1,000 signing-on fee due to shortage

Star InactiveStar InactiveStar InactiveStar InactiveStar Inactive
 

Tesco offers lorry drivers £1,000 signing-on fee due to shortage

Tesco is offering a £1,000 signing-on fee for lorry drivers who join the company before the end of September, as it scrambles to overcome a desperate shortage of workers that has led to gaps on supermarket shelves.

The bonus has been publicised via a job advert posted on Tesco’s site, with the supermarket telling potential candidates: “You’ll play a vital role for our customers and communities, representing Tesco on the highways and byways of the UK.”

The offer to HGV drivers comes amid frenzied competition for those with a specialist licence caused by a mix of Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and tax changes that have prompted some drivers to leave the trade.

A surge in demand for home delivery has also offered a whole range of alternative employment for drivers, potentially without the unsocial hours of long-distance journeys.

The difficulties have led to empty shelves in some supermarkets around the country, particularly after surges in demand for specific products, such as ice-cream, salad or beer, during hot weather. The problems have been exacerbated by rising Covid infections and drivers, warehouse staff and shop workers needing to self-isolate after being notified by the NHS test-and-trace app.

Retailers have warned they could struggle to meet demand into the autumn after months of supply holdups sent stock levels plunging in July to record lows for a second consecutive month, according to a CBI survey.

a truck is parked on the side of a building: There is an estimated shortfall of 90,000 HGV drivers in the UK.

Logistics UK, which represents freight owners including supermarkets, has estimated that there is a shortage of 90,000 HGV drivers, including about 25,000 from the EU who have gone home since Brexit. On top of that, there is a backlog of 45,000 lorry driving tests, which are expected to yield about 25,000 drivers.

“Tesco’s action is a great demonstration of supply and demand. We have been warning there is a shortage of drivers and we are now coming to the peak of the school holidays when those drivers who have been working through the pandemic will want to take a holiday with their kids,” a spokesperson for Logistics UK said.

With competition rife, there are now more than four times the number of online job ads for transport, logistics and warehouse workers than there were pre-pandemic, the biggest boom of any sector, according to analysis by the Office for National Statistics released last week.

Industry insiders say drivers’ pay has already risen by 10% to 20% as a result of competition for workers, but that has failed to yield enough recruits.

The government has tried to ease the problem by extending the number of hours drivers are able to work without a break and loosening restrictions on deliveries in the early morning or late evening. It has also stepped up facilities for training.

Related: UK retailers warn of stock shortages extending into the autumn

But trade bodies say this does not deal with the immediate problem as it can take more than six months to train a new HGV driver. Logistics UK wants the government to offer seasonal workers’ visas to enable more drivers from the EU to enter the UK, particularly over the holiday season when British drivers try to take time off with their families.

Last week it emerged that Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s were asking some suppliers for extra payments to cover increased delivery costs after being forced to raise wages.

Asda wrote to suppliers that use its collection service asking for a 5% rise in payments for transport costs and blaming the national HGV driver shortage.

The UK’s third largest supermarket said it needed help to deal with a 12% rise in driver costs in some areas.

A letter from Tesco to some suppliers demanded a near 18% increase in delivery payments late last month, more than 10 percentage points of which it said was solely down to increased wages for drivers.

Asda’s detailed letter blamed the shortage of delivery drivers on a mix of Brexit, which has affected the rights of European drivers to work in the UK, and the Covid pandemic, which has restricted cross-border travel and sent many drivers home for extended periods of lockdown, and a shortage of testing facilities.

Some existing drivers have also been put off by tax changes that mean drivers previously treated as self-employed, paying their own tax and able to offset expenses, must now be paid via PAYE. 

Reference: The Guardian: Sarah Butler 

Ad Agency Remote

Articles-Latest

MailChimp Signup

Subscribe to Newsletter
Please wait

Who's On Line

We have 142 guests and no members online

Social Media Links Genius

Login Form

Recommended SEO Feeds

BBC News - News Front Page BBC News

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential for the operation of the site, while others help us to improve this site and the user experience (tracking cookies). You can decide for yourself whether you want to allow cookies or not. Please note that if you reject them, you may not be able to use all the functionalities of the site.

Ok
X

Right Click

No right click