1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198 
PUTTING THE PAIN 14 PAY
Page 50
Page 51
Page 52
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Pay is set to become an even bigger problem when the WM comes into play.
Dominic Perry follows the trends.
Talk to most operators and ask them what their most significant outgoing is and they'll probably moan about the price of fuel.They'll tell you how every rise at the pumps means money off their bottom line. Then they'll tell you that they can't recoup it from customers no matter how hard they try; and they'll record to the nth decimal place how much of the cost of a gallon of dery is made up of tax.
Fair enough, fuel is one third of a company's operating costs and its constant price fluctuations are widely publicised in the national media.
However, over the next year or so it is likely that another part of the cost make-up will come to dominate hauliers' thoughts:pay. Like diesel, it already accounts for a third of an operator's costs.And, also like diesel,the cost of drivers only ever seems to rise. The shortageof drivers, both current and projected,is well-documented and it is this, added to the potential effects of the Workinglime Directive, that is driving up pay. Small firms in particular face a difficult time with regard to driver pay.They cannot afford to compete with the logistics giants, yet they have to attempt to at least stay roughly in line with their pay rates or face a crippling staff shortage.
Even those not at the bottom of the food chain have trouble with drivers. Massey Wilcox runs around 80 trucks, both rigids and artics, from its base in Chilcompton, Somerset; an area of with average unemployment rates.
Quality and availability
Operations director Mike Hamm explains the firm's predicament:"We find it hard to get drivers and both their quality and their availability is just dire. You place an advert in the local paper and you're lucky to get a phone call, Drivers can pick and choose who they work for and on what terms. It's the law of supply and demand and the onus is very much with the supplier at present."
It's not a case of paying below the average, he claims, so much as a change in the sort of working patterns that drivers want:"Being a general haulier,some of the demands we make of our drivers are not popular any more. For a driver to leave on Sunday night is OK for the older generation, but younger drivers just don't want to know.
-Our wages have increased year on year and we keep abreast of the general rate in the area and pay above the average.The drivers we have tend not to complain about the wages; it's just the working practices.A a driver can get a job outside the industry tomorrow with nights at home and only working five days a week."
Ham's comments are echoed by international haulier Amoric Freight, based further west in Plymouth. Boss Marc Payne explains its problems: "I haven't been in the market for a driver just recently and we have a list of people who want to join.
"However, I've got a couple of drivers coming up to retirement age and! know I will struggle to recruit people of the same calibre.
Change in people
"There's a change in the type of people coming in to the industry and they don't want to be away for three weeks at a time anymore."
Elsewhere in the South-West the search for drivers is less frantic, at least according to John Probert, managing director of Poole-based Wyvern Cargo. He explains:"I think that established firms always recruit good drivers.They tend to gravitate towards them and I would expect that to continue.
"There's no acute shortage at the moment, despite the fact that there's quite a lot of haulage activity in this area.We find that the drivers stay with us and are very loyal, but! think that's a two-way relationship."
The situation clearly varies, both within regions and from region to region, as figures produced by the Road Haulage Association and Income Data Services show (see charts). These were released at the end of last year and show that to no-one's surprise the South-East leads the way when it comes to driver pay, with an average rate of £7.70, around 50p more than its nearest rival-the West Midlands at £722 (see previous graph).The report notes: "National companies with locations around London and the South-East tend to pay either a London weighting on top of basic rates or have a separate higher pay band for these locations." It cites CarlsbergTetley,for example, as paying London weighting of £65 to its HGV drivers.
It adds: "The West Midlands, Wales and East Midlands have consistently been among the higher paying regions." Perhaps one reason for the two Midlands regions offering drivers a high level of pay is the fact that their wages in the hire-and-reward sector are covered by Joint Industrial Councils bodies that bring together the employers (in the form of the Road Haulage Association) and the transport unions (URTU and the T&G) to thrash out a recommended pay deal. The latest figures from the JICs were determined at the start of this year with the West Midlands increasing rates for artic drivers to £7.75 a rise of 7% and the East Midlands boosting rates to £240 a week a 10% rise. But as one haulier noted at the time, £240 for a 40-hour week was already fairly common.
However, Ruth Pott, the head of employment at the RHA, thinks the JICs have had little effect on pay rates, particularly in areas where they have ceased to exist:"The IDS figures show that the settlements exceed MC rates. Their decline has had the opposite effect. One of the reasons for their demise is that market reality rather overtook them."
Size does matter
The RHAJ1DS report also notes the differential between the pay rates of large and small haulage firms, with larger operators paying over a pound more than their smaller counterparts on average.To some extent this has been reflected with numerous recent pay deals among some of the logistics firms which have increased their rates ahead of the introduction of the WTD next year.
Another factor driving pay increases is the T&G's desire to see a £10/hour rate for drivers in the hire-and-reward sector by next year. However, Pott thinks this may be a long time coming:"I don't think they will get there by next year which is what they are hoping for." She also plays down the potential affect of the WTD, claiming that it will not be nearly as bad as was originally feared. •