petrol stations price discussion (was ‘chaos’)

Soldato
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Annoyingly, my fuel light is on, and I was planning to fill up tonight so I can drive up to my parents this weekend. Perhaps I wont bother :/
I remember when the last fuel shortage was on, and I needed to do my normal monthly fill up. I felt like one of the idiots in that queue!
Not everyone will be panic buying, just doing their normal thing. Luckily I've got just over half a tank so will be ok for a couple of weeks.
 
Caporegime
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As I said in a thread in GD, it’s laughable, the media are stoking up the clueless public into panic buying which I find it strange.

Petrol tanker driving is one of the highest paying HGV driving jobs, and very sought after, I’ve never seen job adverts for such positions even during the current shortage, it’s known as a “dead mans shoes” job i.e. vacancies just don’t come up unless someone dies….

I can understand the likes of food shortages due to driver shortage as generally that side of the industry has been low paid and drivers treated like crap for years, many have left the job ironically because many of the same supermarkets will happily pay more per hour to stack shelves than they will for someone to drive an HGV.

Such companies have relied on cheaper Eastern European labour for years and now post covid (which has screwed up HGV license testing causing an even bigger shortage than already existed prior to covid) many of those drivers have gone back home as they can earn similar money in their own countries - I know quite a few who’ve done just this - so we now have a perfect storm, an exacerbated driver shortage, crap conditions for drivers, low pay (ignore media headlines of £70k,it’s rubbish) and a generation of younger workers who have bo desire to work 70 hour weeks.

No surprise to me or anyone else who’s done this job for any length of time…
 
Caporegime
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As I said in a thread in GD, it’s laughable, the media are stoking up the clueless public into panic buying which I find it strange.

Such companies have relied on cheaper Eastern European labour for years and now post covid (which has screwed up HGV license testing causing an even bigger shortage than already existed prior to covid) many of those drivers have gone back home as they can earn similar money in their own countries - I know quite a few who’ve done just this - so we now have a perfect storm, an exacerbated driver shortage, crap conditions for drivers, low pay (ignore media headlines of £70k,it’s rubbish) and a generation of younger workers who have bo desire to work 70 hour weeks.

No surprise to me or anyone else who’s done this job for any length of time…


And people said that immigrant labour did not have deflationary impact on UK wages.

How wrong were they? I've seen numerous hgv drivers get 30% rises in a week.
 
Caporegime
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ignore media headlines of £70k, it’s rubbish

No surprise to me or anyone else who’s done this job for any length of time…

Anecdotal, but my friends dad has had people ringing him offering him 80K+ per year to drive HGV lorries. He's 71 and retired.

He used to specialise in moving temperamental chemicals and fuels etc. All he would need to do is a renewal assessment.

Do we really want geriatric lorry drivers on the road?

Edit - He refused by the way.
 
Caporegime
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And people said that immigrant labour did not have deflationary impact on UK wages.

How wrong were they? I've seen numerous hgv drivers get 30% rises in a week.
We got 17.5% which on the face of it sounds great, I’m now on £12 per hr, in 2007 I was earning £9.75! - wages have been stagnant in this job for a very long time and as a consequence many have left the industry.

Many agencies are offering crazy rates, £35+ per hour, not one of them will guarantee you work after January….
 
Caporegime
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On the road....
Anecdotal, but my friends dad has had people ringing him offering him 80K+ per year to drive HGV lorries. He's 71 and retired.

He used to specialise in moving temperamental chemicals and fuels etc. All he would need to do is a renewal assessment.

Do we really want geriatric lorry drivers on the road?

Edit - He refused by the way.
Good on him.

I’m getting inundated with on the face of it incredibly good rates, until you look deeper into it and you either have very short shifts or your only required on certain days and no guarantee of work after Christmas, which is often the case with agencies…
 
Permabanned
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And people said that immigrant labour did not have deflationary impact on UK wages.

How wrong were they? I've seen numerous hgv drivers get 30% rises in a week.

Are these not just temporary rises to meet demand? Once the 100k drivers positions are filled, maybe when they alter visa's for european workers, the demand goes down and wages back to normal.
 
Soldato
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We got 17.5% which on the face of it sounds great, I’m now on £12 per hr, in 2007 I was earning £9.75! - wages have been stagnant in this job for a very long time and as a consequence many have left the industry.

Many agencies are offering crazy rates, £35+ per hour, not one of them will guarantee you work after January….

Mate of mine had his own haulage company and was working just for a sweets mover, he now contracts for Stobart, loads less hassle for him as well as more money..

Long gone are the days where you could drive up and down the country, stop in laybys or other places with facilities, its a crappy job these days, but certainly not one I would want to do, 56mph everywhere and getting fined for being late, rising fuel costs as well as other costs and yet those you drag stuff around for are trying to drive the prices down, sucks to be you chap..
 
Soldato
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We got 17.5% which on the face of it sounds great, I’m now on £12 per hr, in 2007 I was earning £9.75! - wages have been stagnant in this job for a very long time and as a consequence many have left the industry.

Many agencies are offering crazy rates, £35+ per hour, not one of them will guarantee you work after January….

That's a crazy low wage for a job with such responsibility. You'd get paid more working in Aldi stacking shelves.
 
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