If Greggs Ran Out Of Sausage Rolls?

BDEE said:
It was a Labour government who promised the earth to a generation of people telling them that they were all too good for manual jobs and they should all go to university, get a degree, be a lawyer or a doctor.

A generation did this and now end up working as a Barista, despite having a degree in history or the arts, because actually there was not the requirements for the sheer numbers of people wanting such highly paid jobs, but because of the dream which Labour sold them, they feel it is beneath them to be a lorry driver, or a fruit picker etc.

Labour felt it OK to just pay peanuts to overseas workers for jobs which they promised a generation of Brits they wouldn't have to do.

Alas the champagne socialism dint work and now they blame the government of the day for problems which are rooted back in their mis-management of the country.
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Labour bought in a National minimum wage, so I think some bias might be clouding your statements here about paying peanuts to foreign workers.

Also when they came in to power, 30% of school leavers were already going to University. They wanted to increase this to 50% but that didn't ever happen whilst they were in power.

The closest it came was in 2019. You could argue that technically it was met but it was 57% girls/women and 44% of men.

That means that by the time those kids went to Uni, they had been under some form of Tory government since they were 9 years old.

I don't know about you, but when I was 9 I wasn't thinking about going to University...
 
dLockers said:
Because they wouldn't fall under IR35 if they were being hired on a temporary basis to fulfil a short-term rise in demand ('defined services').

The challenge was that a lot of contractors were no different to full time employees with no specific end date or cap to the services. They were just humans working for companies and avoiding Tax/NI/Employers NI.
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Forgive me for not being au fait with this IR35 thing, the last time I drove a 44 ton truck off a ferry at Harwich, returning from Hannover or Düsseldorf was circa 1981-1982.
Were there really that many self employed indigenous and European truckers working here and swerving income tax to make it necessary to introduce a new law to curb the practice?
 
Jean-F said:
Were there really that many self employed indigenous and European truckers working here and swerving income tax to make it necessary to introduce a new law to curb the practice?
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IR35 decimated many industries, not just haulage. IT was majorly hit (you'll see the number of "consultants" nowadays are fewer and far between compared with previous, most have moved into full time employment).

Essentially it benefitted the companies and "employees" - companies didn't have to pay NI, pension and other costs related to a permanent employee - and the "employee" could withdraw their earnings as dividends at a lower tax rate. Win-Win. Now that's been canned companies have incurred higher costs, the "employees" have to stump up more tax so it's roughed up everyone's feathers.
 
Blame everything from IR35 to university education if you like, but we all know what's causing this and Brexit is well and truly the Tory experiment. That's why the government is being blamed.
 
I’d challenge the notion it decimated curtain industries, it just ended their tax dodge and bought them in line with everyone else which is why they were upset about it.

Let’s me realistic about it pre-IR35 was also loose loose for your everyday tax payer who had to play by a different set of rules and shouldering more of the burden.
 
inogen said:
You think someone who is capable of getting a university degree (in any subject) should be happy picking fruit?
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If you're doing a degree in a subject with poor job prospects from a university with a poor reputation and end up scoring a 3rd then you can't really expect to just walk into a cushy job earning 6 figures at the end of it... Regardless of government policy, university isn't for everyone, and there are only so many jobs for psychology, sport science and media studies graduates...
 
The driver shortage seems to be largely thanks to the ****** DVLA taking forever to process anything.

They didnt work during lockdown, then went on strike.
 
Nasher said:
The driver shortage seems to be largely thanks to the ****** DVLA taking forever to process anything.

They didnt work during lockdown, then went on strike.
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Do you have any links to the data or even news articles that cover this? I'd be interested to see it because I'm convinced it's predominantly a Brexit issue.

Edit: I found some data

From 2015 to 2020 there where approximately 40k tests passed each year. From 2020/2021 it was 15k.

That's a shortfall of 25k drivers. The estimates I'm seeing reported is 100k additional drivers required nationwide, therefore whilst test volume has had an impact it isn't the main contributor.

Incidentally, the pass rate percentage for 2020/2021 is 58% which is the highest it's been since 2007.

https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...oods-vehicle-driving-test-data-by-test-centre

Edit 2

This BBC article appears to weigh the contributory factors equally between Brexit, driver test pass rate, IR35 and drivers leaving due to pay and conditions. A perfect storm by the look of it. It's clear that only government level intervention can solve this which is why they are being blamed for not solving it.

BBC News - How serious is the shortage of lorry drivers?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/57810729
 
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Dirk Diggler said:
Do you have any links to the data or even news articles that cover this? I'd be interested to see it because I'm convinced it's predominantly a Brexit issue.
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There isn't really a shortage of tanker drivers in the UK though - most are employed and command good salaries. They also have good working conditions and most go home each night etc.

Feel free to enlighten us though, how Brexit is causing people to top up their tanks every 5 minutes, running the system dry.
 
lookitsjonno said:
There isn't really a shortage of tanker drivers in the UK though - most are employed and command good salaries. They also have good working conditions and most go home each night etc.

Feel free to enlighten us though, how Brexit is causing people to top up their tanks every 5 minutes, running the system dry.
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The thread isn't about the shortage of fuel, it's about the shortage of HGV drivers.

Feel free to read the edit to my previous post; I found the data I was looking for.
 
inogen said:
You think someone who is capable of getting a university degree (in any subject) should be happy picking fruit?
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Nope, you misunderstand the point.

Point being, the problem of people not wanting to do certain jobs has been building for 30 years. It isn't a new a sudden thing like a lot of folk would have you believe in order to score political points.
 
My whole childhood I was told I would do school, gcses, a levels, university. I never had a say in the matter.
Probably a big chunk of the population like me who don't even get the chance to choose whether or not they want to do a job like that.
 
lookitsjonno said:
Ahh, so we just exclude the fuel aspect of this because it doesn't conform to your confirmatory biases
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You don't get to take the conversation down your own personal little rabbit holes. You asked me to enlighten you why Brexit is causing people to top up their tanks every 5 minutes, when I had made no such claim.

I'm posting in a thread in response to the question posed in the OP. The issue with people panic buying fuel is a separate conversation.
 
Haggisman said:
If you're doing a degree in a subject with poor job prospects from a university with a poor reputation and end up scoring a 3rd then you can't really expect to just walk into a cushy job earning 6 figures at the end of it... Regardless of government policy, university isn't for everyone, and there are only so many jobs for psychology, sport science and media studies graduates...
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I get the sentiment but the rhetoric is a bit tiring. University should teach you how to learn, research and form opinions that can be peer reviewed and further a particular field.

If you want to learn for a particular job or role you're better off with a vocational course.
 
dLockers said:
I get the sentiment but the rhetoric is a bit tiring. University should teach you how to learn, research and form opinions that can be peer reviewed and further a particular field.
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Of course it should, but let's be honest, a social studies degree from a random polytechnic is unlikely to do so to any great level. And a masters in geography isn't going to jump start your career in quantum physics.

dLockers said:
If you want to learn for a particular job or role you're better off with a vocational course.
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Exactly my point about university not being suited for everyone, and also backs up the point about why should a graduate not be prepared to do a job picking fruit? Maybe they should have done something different with a realistic chance of giving them the career they would want?
 
dLockers said:
I get the sentiment but the rhetoric is a bit tiring. University should teach you how to learn, research and form opinions that can be peer reviewed and further a particular field.

If you want to learn for a particular job or role you're better off with a vocational course.
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Indeed my career master at school told me it didnt matter what i went to uni to study for unless I wanted a particular career like in medicine or engineering then obviously you need to the right degree to go with it. He said it was all about learning and how to analysis stuff.

Unless it was for a vocational job, if you were applying for a job post uni it doesnt matter if your degree is in physics or history.
 
Haggisman said:
Of course it should, but let's be honest, a social studies degree from a random polytechnic is unlikely to do so to any great level. And a masters in geography isn't going to jump start your career in quantum physics.



Exactly my point about university not being suited for everyone, and also backs up the point about why should a graduate not be prepared to do a job picking fruit? Maybe they should have done something different with a realistic chance of giving them the career they would want?
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I'm thick as the best thicko (as demonstrated by my posts on here) but going to university opened up opportunities I could have never possibly even considered. Those folk doing social studies degrees at polys are probably in the same camp as I. I also imagine the same for most folk who go to university. I knew very few folk who were at university because they knew their desired career beyond doctor, dentist, vet.

Good for you if you knew exactly what career you wanted and had the foresight to pick a degree that got you the jump start you expected.
 
On the point of university numbers, I think to justify all of the 'unused' degrees, you have to think about the total social benefit.

If you go to university and read engineering, medicine, law etc., you are learning useful skills and when you enter a job to use those, you bring a tangible benefit to society.

When you go and read sport science, psychology, history of art etc., and get a job that has literally nothing to do with those things, there's very little actual benefit to society because you got your degree. Gaining that degree allowed you to rank yourself above a large number of people for job prospects, but it didn't do a lot for the actual benefit of society.

When you consider than in terms of the context of university places compared to how many people we need picking fruit... it's easy to see that the notion of being too good to pick fruit because you are _capable_ of earning a degree, doesn't lead to an efficient outcome for the economy on a wide scale.
 
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