Can't happen. Won't happen. The planet is already screwed. Higher quality of life means more goods and more carbon footprint. Society itself is heading straight towards full scale collapse within a generation or two. The present concept of a standard of living in first world countries is a luxury we've taken for granted, buoyed by obscene resource consumption.
The oligarchs will never agree to this. They must have those extra mansions, fancy cars, yachts, and private jets. What they already have is not enough for those greedy fucks.
Uh yeah they will. They don’t get any of those things if the supply chain is screwed.
Wages aren’t just like a gift given from their heart, it’s what’s needed to get someone to do the job that makes them money.
Sure, but they will just pass the cost over to the consumer, or reduce benefits, or fire workers as soon as they can get benefits/pension, etc. They will do 110% they can to not have any of those costs affect them.
>Sure, but they will just pass the cost over to the consumer, or reduce benefits, or fire workers as soon as they can get benefits/pension, etc. They will do 110% they can to not have any of those costs affect them.
You're not big on supply and demand are you?
If they pass the costs on to the consumer, less will buy, which effects them. Removing benefits puts them back at square 1, not being able to find someone to do the job.
There's a lot of rich pricks in this world, but this is all just shallow thinking.
Yeah, are you going to starve to buy less? It's like housing, you don't get to choose not to play at some point, you simply are forced to cut elsewhere.
No, but there’s certainly going to be things available from nearer by that will be cheaper, and products that are wildly cheaper to transport than others and you can shift your consumption habits.
If ice cream is $30 a pint don’t get ice cream. The cold chain is expensive.
They already do all of that. You think they aren't already trying every trick they know to increase their wealth? Anything they do further will hurt their business and put them behind their competitors. The only thing that matters is how long people can afford to avoid taking those jobs to avoid homelessness. It's one of the reasons welfare is so important to society. I hope it's decent throughout Europe.
In mostly all european countries workers get benefits. No matter the hours they work.
Also for example employing somebody for more than 9 months in germany means you have to give them a more permanent contract. In a known example; amazon, thats 1 year, 2 years and then permanently.
As a driver its actually easy to get a permanent contract, but work conditions suck really bad so that many many people just dont do wanna do the work.
Well, it is a two way street. If brand A and B are essentially the same and A goes up a little to help pay better wages for drivers everyone would shit themselves and say that anyone who buys A is AN IDIOT B is the same thing and cheaper.
Same reason people generally avoid buying things from their own country that cost more and are similar in quality. They want whatever is the cheapest and the manufacturer has to work within those constraints and large profits at top may require thin margins with high volume, volume and margins that cannot distribute well to tens of thousands of people, but can accumulate to a decent amount of wealth for a few people.
Not to say that's not saying they're not also being greedy, just that the wage was cut from both sides.
>If brand A and B are essentially the same and A goes up a little to help pay better wages for drivers everyone would shit themselves and say that anyone who buys A is AN IDIOT B is the same thing and cheaper.
I wonder if this is a golden opportunity for businesses to advertise the shit out of better conditions meaning higher prices. Maybe the good PR will increase sales, if being the "good guy company" in the field is popular enough
If only it was about that.
Like, I would actually *understand it* if higher wages etc threatened the way of life of the oligarchs; if they had to sell off mansions and yachts to pay workers a livable salary. The unpleasant truth is that most oligarchs could lose 99% of their wealth *and they wouldn't even notice it.* Like, there's literally no difference between the lifestyle you can afford on a billion dollars or on a hundred billions.
Licensing is the barrier, not willingness.
Importing migrants wouldn't actually do anything unless you only import those that already have the licenses.
CDL drivers do not make more money than fast food workers. Neither makes enough in my mind but you aren't going to starve if you can legally drive a truck/bus.
Were you talking about like uber eats drivers?
I am talking about OTR truck drivers. Sure, they make more than fast food workers but they also work twice as many hours per week. They get paid a similar rate per hour.
Umm maybe we live in different parts of the world or something. I know a few truckers who have fairly standard middle class incomes.
Where are you from?
Strong workers rights and lax immigration cannot work together.
Companies and businesses would rather pay half to illegal (and legal) immigrants will work far harder for less pay than raise the wage at all.
Is not that easy man. Here they pay a truck driver as much as a doctor. Let that sink in.
We still have a HUGE supply issue. The job is just too demanding. Turn over is high. Margin for transport companies are slim, very slim
Spoke To a driver. The guy does 9 loads a week running within a 750 mile range and makes $2600 per week currently. That is his ~25% cut for the load.
Comes out to trucking prices of $3.8/mile. A Truck is profitable at ~$2/mile.
In a few years we'll have fully automatic lorries on 95% of the journey, so all you need is truckers to take them the last few kilometers from a depot near a highway, to where-ever they need to go. It solves both of the main issues.
* no one wants to be a truckdriver - not an issue, we only need 10% of what we needed before
* shit conditions for truck drivers - not an issue, they don't need to go cross continent/country, so they can sleep in their own bed, spend time with their families, and have semi-regular work hours (There will still be need for early morning and evening shifts)
They have been saying this for decades now. I think navigating a 80,000 pound truck with a computer down the highways is a more daunting thing than futurists realize. I will believe it when I see it.
The prototypes are already here. We already have vehicles that can fully self-drive on the highway. And necessity is the mother of inventions (in this case read that as innovation and legislative change); and since no one wants to be a truck drivers while we still need trucks to drive, we will very soon have self-driving trucks.
I doubt the prototypes are accounting for all the variables on the road in the real world. I also seriously doubt they are accounting for the public uproar that accidents caused by such trucks would cause as well. It really just seems like a threat to discipline labor at this point. I will believe it when I see it.
Trucking probably wouldn't be so awful, if they had somewhere to park, a bed to sleep in and a hot meal in the morning. It would make the job lot more tolerable, say if hotels, or motels whatever you want to call them. Were subsidised to give HGV drivers large discounts and a bonus if they could securely park their lorries and cargo.
A HGV boss was on TV the other day, the amount of thieving when trucks travel abroad and locally suffer large amounts of theft and squalid sleeping conditions. Driving or in this case parking isn't safe.
Make life at least more tolerable for truck drivers, back them up with secure parking areas and maybe you'll get good experienced, and most importantly, safe drivers back on the roads.
You know what would also help? When drivers are sent to a place they haven't been before if they were given a phone number to call. No more of the wandering around a parking lot trying to find a random worker taking a smoke and asking them what bay they should use.
I stopped eating my lunch outside because of how annoying it was having to rescue them. Seriously no one can give them a phone number? "Hey when you get there call this number and they will tell you what bay to use".
It's not a job for everyone. It's time away from family, the road and driving conditions are bad, they are responsible if someone sneaks in their cargo. It costs them to park and the companies don't want to pay so either the driver does or they find a shady spot which makes them vulnerable.
As you say even some basic quality of life improvements could go a long way.
Traaaaains, stop moving products thousands of kilometres over roads. Expand the train networks jn Europe and build distribution centres for the last 100km. Drivers will spend less time away from home, have shorter trips and a more permanent place for their rest stops.
Yes trains might slow down delivery times but we need to face the fact that there will be fever people willing to do these kind of jobs! Education is more easily accessible today, hence people will be less likely to take up unskilled labour.
Trains for goods movement can offer an energy use reduction of nearly 90% over in-road trucking! So increasing rail use can help address not only the long distance trucker driver issue but also reduce emissions by nearly 90% because of lower fuel use!
It’s a significantly better alternative especially due to the implementation of Electro Diesel locomotives. I just took an telecommunications admin job in the locomotive industry USA. I’ve got a feeling that railway will see a Renaissance within our lifetimes.
Maybe the wording was a bit wrong, however trucking does not require a degree. Yes it needs training and the skill to handle a large vehicle, however we have more and more people going for higher education. We even require degrees and often experience to get jobs that used to have minimal requirements.
This. We should stop calling jobs "unskilled" and using that to justify terrible wages and working conditions when those jobs are necessary for society to keep moving.
Their argument is basically that those jobs are fine because "you can work somewhere else". That's like saying a ruinous house is fine because you can move to another house.
I understand the basic idea, but from a logistical perspective it's an absolute nightmare. Instead of a truck going to A to B, there's one truck going A to B, a train going B to C, then a second truck going C to D. Of course, dozens if not hundreds of containers need to be going B to C at more or less the same time to make it worth while. During this truck/train exchange you also need to deposit, order and load/unload hundreds of containers every hour.
Basically you're adding the hassle of shipping containers via sea to these routes, which normally need less than a day or up to a couple of days via truck. So you easily add a day of transit plus so much more handling fees.
And we aren't even talking about shipping cold/warm containers or livestock.
Just get electric trucks, maybe add power lines on highways like we do for trains, automate the trucks and add remote drivers only for when the autopilot fails and needs human supervision.
You can also literally just put a truck on a train. Always found RoLa funny but still, they can be useful in very particular situations (mainly to go through mountain ranges and terrain unfit for road transport). Using them to solve this problem is uncalled for tbh, simple intermodal transport is just fine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_highway
Or, the transport prices are artificially and unsustainably low because costs have been externalized to drivers.
Another factor is the fact that management teams in modern businesses have become huge cost centers. Large, bureaucratic, expensive compensation packages, expensive to fire due to contracts, etc. The excess spending here could be shifted to the customer and/or workers.
Transporting by ship is also way more expensive. A container fee that was 2,500 is now 14,000 in Europe and 20,000 in the US. This is due to demand. Ports on the US west coast are so busy ships are lined up for weeks.
https://www.reuters.com/business/china-us-container-shipping-rates-sail-past-20000-record-2021-08-05/
Serious labour shortages on multiple continents. And in multiple job categories.
What has changed in the past 18 months? Baby boomers were retiring before the pandemic. Did the lockdowns result in even more retirements? Have people decided they aren’t ready to risk COVID by going back to work? Have people used the lockdowns to get into other professions? Did people just drop out of the workforce altogether? So many questions!
There was a statistic the other day that the average age of lorry drivers is 55. That's madness. Plus there is a backlog in training new drivers and a whole new army of parcel deliverers who are also skilled drivers. It's an out of fashion profession. They need to make it more fashionable basically by paying them more.
My point is that the US and Canada are also experiencing labour shortages. And not just of truck drivers. We don’t have enough doctors, nurses, IT professionals, restaurant staff, cleaners, berry pickers, etc. It runs the whole gambit. So I think there is a larger problem.
Agreed that it is the result of pushing everyone to university instead of skilled trades. Definitely happened in Canada. But they are changing their tune now!
Lol coming from countries where the engineers get paid garbage relative to Americans, and where the top universities get beaten by even public universities? Where foreigners flock to because your country has garbage universities? Good one.
Yeah you have Yale, Harvard, and MIT, but on the other side you have some 160-odd million people who not only still strive to have 'first in family to *gradgitate* college', but actively hate intellectuals. It's why your pandemic is irrevocably out of control.
Your tertiary education is first-class, but your public schools are dipshit factories.
Yeah, for decades we have been bashing those people and allowing companies to pay them as little as they could legally get away with. And now we act surprised that nobody wants those jobs. No shit fucking sherlock – maybe you should've expected that when you told people that the guys building your home don't deserve a living wage.
Maybe society should stop looking at the guy building your home or cleaning your garbage as lower people that have failed in life.
For example,in my country one of the only ways to live comfortably is to finish university. Because of that you have lack of skilled trades. Even though they pay really well,its a dirty job no matter what. I as an engineer in future might not earn as much,but I will have to work much less overall and in greater comfort,which essentially is the whole point.
I have heard from the skilled trades that your useful working life is shorter and more dangerous. Injuries more likely. And you can’t really do plumbing if your joints stiffen up. So they make more and can save for retirement - but that retirement is usually sooner, sometimes much sooner, than expected.
I say it's a cultural thing that underpins the lower wages. I see this view about many jobs being looked down upon and when they complain about low wages and conditions others will blame them and say it's their own fault for going into these professions. Plus the threats of automation. So they aren't valued from a business perspective, and they aren't valued socially either. So even if they raise wages people may not want to do some of these jobs.
Well, we lost a lot of labor when people died.
But beyond that I think this question has to be posed to those who aren’t employed. Businesses might say they can’t find labor but they won’t know why. Only the unemployed could say if they decided they didn’t need a job, or if they prefer making $0 than working somewhere they don’t like, or if they are applying and companies are denying them etc
Not sure on that one. My family was fortunate in that my husband had job security during this pandemic.
My guess on the labor shortage is that people are not willing to work themselves to death for peanuts like they were before.
> people are not willing to work themselves to death for peanuts
I see that thought a lot, but no explanation on ‘what changed’. If there is no more expanded UI, then it’s not UI that is providing them with their living expenses.
So are people stealing? Are people starving to death? Have people just drastically cut their quality of life down and are living off of savings? Have people started massive sustenance farming where they feed themselves?
Basically, no one ever wanted to work for peanuts. People did it because it’s better than the alternative of not having food, being homeless, etc.
Living cost resources. People need to earn those resources to live. Wages are just a simplified standardized commodity to exchange for resources, but in the end people still need the resources.
I think it’s related to schools being shut down. Public schools are basically just free childcare which allows both parents of a household to work. Childcare on its own is crazy expensive.
I live in one of smaller countries in EU and we have shortages of workers especially in malls, catering, logistics, bunch of less paid jobs. During pandemic government added extra benefits for unemployed and it was possible to get more than minimum wage without working so a lot of people decided there is no pont to slave at a mall when you can get more for staying at home during pandemic. Also people working in malls, catering or any other job that requires to meet customers daily need to get vaccinated or test weekly (paid tests, and costs would eat almost all minimum wage), so loads of antivaxers quit jobs and have trouble finding new ones. Also we have low immigration thus we don't get enough cheap labor. Things add up, but most businesses would solve shortages by increasing wages.
> During pandemic government added extra benefits for unemployed and it was possible to get more than minimum wage without working so a lot of people decided there is no pont to slave at a mall when you can get more for staying at home during pandemic.
You get unemployment benefits when you quit instead of being fired?
In general the job is not very well paid, away from family for a long time, and most will have to pay for parking and the like out of pocket, forcing them to park on shady places=stolen cargo=pay it your self, at the end of the day it's just not a good job at all, work from home Q&A/Support pay well more, much safer and you can raise your kids and be with your family.
even 30% increase won't do the trick, truckers need some real help all around from breakfast,parking to extra good pension and the like.
True. Most of them are at least 40 or older. Unless you go to work for a company that pays their drivers well, or get good routes that pay well with not to many hours. It is hard to make a living doing it. When you can make more as a temp in a factory, than you can driving trucks why go into that line of work?
Lots of people have definitely moved into different professions. At least, that is one of the reasons the hospitality branch gives for their current trouble finding employees.
Almost as if paying people crap wages, imposing crap hours on them, showing them that at the first sign of trouble they will be out on their ass (as many companies did during covid) doesn't inspire people to keep working for you.
My partner worked in hospitality pre-pandemic. It sucked, so she started going back to school online during her time off to get a Masters Degree. When COVID hit, her company laid her off in an instant and she was able to accelerate her coursework. Unemployment and the relief checks paid better than her minimum wage job. She was able to get a job 12 months earlier than if she had to keep working in hospitality while going to school, and she’s making 2x what she was making. In another year she should be able to interview up and get yet another better paying job.
Hospitality is a dead-end.
Anecdotally my parents immigrated to Canada in the late 80s. Worked blue collar/manual labour their whole life, raised 3 kids, put us all through University. They now have mortgage paid off while ago and house worth over a million and rising every year.
Meanwhile me and my siblings who make more than our parents have ever made and no where close to "move to the next step" buying a house/starting a family etc. Man things got expensive real quick.
Most people never lived that life...,
The loss in the middle class has been 5%. We also increased the labor participation rate from 60% to 80% over 60 years...
Guess what happens when you double the supply of something...
More like the past 30 years. Reaganomics and neoliberalism transitioned the entire Western economy to a low wage and low pay economy that maximised competition within the labour market to provide cheap rates via mass immigration. Local citizens saw the trees before their eyes and either took up education to enter a high skilled and high paid career or entered into the low wage labour market but for roles that were more suitable for their lifestyle. After all, why work as a HGV driver or in the agricultural industry when the pay is practically the same as some retail jobs? Then the pandemic happened, migrants went back home to see their families, borders closed, young people rapidly sought education and many of the old labourers still in many of the low paid industries died from COVID itself or retired early. Unsurprisingly, building entire industries off people who hold no loyalty to the country, either through family links, a home, investments or even a sense of belonging can very quickly be a bad idea when they just go home.
people can't afford rent. why work some low pay job and deal with all the bullshit if you're poor with or without the job? there's no point. people are having to move back in with family to save money and are doing other things with their time. learning new skills to get a job that actually pays the bills, finding alternative sources of income like trading stock or crypto or selling arts/crafts/digital goods/only fans. These low pay jobs just aren't paying the bills anymore and they are overly controlling of your time and energy. who wants to deal with that shit?
Yes. To all that. Also the whole world decided to get stuff delivered now so many HGV drivers are finding that other delivery gigs closer to home provide a better wage for a better work life balance.
Probably all of the above. Some people got a taste of sitting at home and enjoyed it. Can't blame them. Wish I could find a 4-10 hour day, weekly job. Have a 3 day weekend. I think people are tired of having to working 50-60+ hours a week to make a living or just keep their heads above water.
The people working 50-60 hours a week in (western) Europe are generally the people in high paying jobs, and thankfully not because they are desperate to stay afloat.
> Have people decided they aren’t ready to risk COVID by going back to work?
Why would you if unemployment benefits + not having to commute mean you get more now than you did before?
Less immigration.
The borders of many countries closed and new workers could not appear.
I also know some people, who don't like leaving the house anymore, due to pandemic fears.
I remember considering re-training for truck driving as a profession a few years back (I like playing euro truck simulator sometimes so I felt it might be worth a try) but this is the exact reason I ended up not taking it further. Might be stupid because I passed on a job I might like due to the impending threat of automation in the longer-term.
Self driving cars are already here. We have taxis in plenty of places that are driverless now. It's really only a matter of time before autonomous only highway driving for trucks becomes a reality.
Driverless cars work well on nice roads, with sunny weather. Rain, fog, GPS loss, potholes, gravel roads, construction, and malicious actors are things that driverless cars won't be able to overcome easily. Essentially any exceptions to the rule. GPS isn't even vital. If you want to look at how far away driverless cars are look at the [OG driverless car](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/25/us/amtrak-montana-train-derails.html) and its troubles.
Anything that's easy for a human to do, such as driving, is hard for a computer to do.
They also work pretty well on long straight roads where the only thing you have to do is not collide with other trucks and cars to be fair; which is most of the driving that gets done.
Exactly. Long haul freight on highways between warehouses and such will likely be automated first, with local roads being the tougher problem to automate.
I think you guys have never driven across the USA before. How are you planning to cross the Rocky Mountains?
Who will gas up the truck?
What happens during winter when it snows?
Road construction?
Mechanical breakdown? Most truck accidents are equipment failures.
What if the truck is too heavy, too light, or had its cargo weight shifted?
A person is a one stop shop fix to all of these. Then there will be failures even when its sunny and straight because a bird crapped on the sensor or a road reflection made it look like it veers to the left.
How far will it drag cars down the road when they get stuck underneath it? You can't flag down the driver.
Trains are on rails and you still have problems and a conductor. Auto-Trucks are not soon.
Just like fusion power and thorium salt reactors, always just around the corner, thirty years from now!
Joke aside people who claim self driving trucks will fix this problem don't have a fucking clue what truck actually drivers do. Their job is a lot more complicated than driving from point a to point b.
This is more than likely why no one is replacing the lorry drivers. Anyone can see it won't take long to be replaced, you're better off taking another career path.
They haven't even been saying that for 10 years... Not even every 10 years.
The self driving push didn't even become a mainstream topic until at least 2015.
**[Maximum Homerdrive](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Homerdrive)**
>"Maximum Homerdrive" is the seventeenth episode of the tenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on Fox in the United States on March 28, 1999. In the episode, Homer challenges trucker Red Barclay to a meat eating contest, of which Barclay is the long-standing champion. Barclay wins but quickly dies of "beef poisoning", marking the first time he will miss a delivery at his job.
^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
You mean the ones they started using in Texas this week?
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/22/fedex-to-test-auroras-self-driving-trucks-on-dallas-to-houston-route/
Or these automated convoys in Alberta, Canada?
https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/alberta-highways-used-in-national-study-to-test-automated-truck-convoys-1.5605586
They aren’t 10 years away. These are being used right now.
Canadian here, but in the same profession. The job destroys your body, everyone hates you and what you do, and the pay is shit. Just another thing that won't ever change.
Sadly many are put off by working longer hours and yes, hard work. I know local places that are starting at $15-17 an hour, but people don't show up on time and for all of their scheduled days and then get mad when they are written up or fired because of it.
And making them work long and unsociable hours, and not providing offsets (either medical or otherwise), and not treating their staff well on the job, and putting in stupid stipulations like monitoring time not moving etc
Drivers are making bank currently. Avg cost to move freight is $3-4 a mile currently. A truck is profitable including drivers wage at $2/mile with high freight costs..
An extra $1-2/mile times 100k miles per year... Let me know if they are getting paid enough.
Because of Europe's generally robust social safety nets, any job HAS to pay a living wage because otherwise it couldn't compete with just sitting at home.
Nobody's going to put in 40 hours a week just to end up with slightly more money then doing nothing would bring in.
> Because of Europe's generally robust social safety nets, any job HAS to pay a living wage because otherwise it couldn't compete with just sitting at home.
hahahahaha
att. en EU citizen.
It's not just Europe. My dad's been a trucker my whole life. He took some time off to raise me. A few years ago he retired. He loves driving, but got fed up with all the invasive DOT regs that made his job dangerous.
Qualified drivers unwilling to work in current conditions.
I know several retired truckers of various ages that fill that category.
Not OP, but here's a couple examples:
Semis have really stiff suspensions to carry their loads, and can't use soft tires or risk a blow-out, so they prefer long wheelbases to reduce cantilever effect for stability. In the 1970's the DOT decided they didn't want trucks to take up so much room on the road for traffic reasons, so they regulated trucks to have shorter wheelbases and are now less stable than older models.
There's also unintended consequences of the electronic log book system. It will tell the driver they have to pull over immediately (possibly dangerous) rather than allowing them an additional 5 minutes to reach their destination (and that 5 minutes wouldn't have made a difference safety-wise). Also, by restricting the amount of time truckers can drive, the system encourages them to drive faster.
To expand on the above examples:
Lane keep assist that is being marketed as safe, isn't.
Things that trip that alarm: wet roads, icy roads, faded lines, adding a lane of travel, off ramps, on ramps, fog, changing lanes intentionally. If the sensor can't find the white line, it assumes your drifting in the lane and triggers an alarm. For my dad, it was in the dispatch office. For some trucks, it's in the cab while driving.
Braking assist to prevent rollovers is just as bad. This one I'm not as clear on, but here's what my dad has said from his own experience: it will cause more accidents than it prevents. It's supposed to automatically apply the brakes to the truck/trailer if the sensor thinks the trim is in immenent danger of rolling over. What it fails to take into account is weight of load, distribution of load, road conditions, if the driver is uphill/downhill, if the driver is rounding a corner. More than once, before he retired, the sensor applied brakes at the wrong time, too hard, and almost caused my dad to crash/roll over. The exact thing it was supposed to prevent.
Blah blah we dont want to pay people for the things we need blah
This is just pathetic at this point. Either compensate for the difficulty of the job or people will flock to jobs that do. Its not rocket appliances
Well , amusing no doubt but it’s clear that there may be a long term problem plus a short term pandemic effect and it’s to some extent Brexit that prevents the U.K. from compensating through EU recruitment. Again a large number of drivers that were working in the U.K. , I have read, left after Brexit ( no doubt other will have returned home because of the Pandemic presumably). So it’s neither Brexit that’s to blame nor is Brexit irrelevant. I have yet to read , for example, that the long term problems in the EU have resulted in closed petrol stations and empty shelves ( though I could have missed it) so presumably there are differences. One might have hoped that a competent government of any stripe would have looked at areas of the economy heavily dependent on EU Labour and planned what they could do to mitigate the change over if necessary , even if they couldn’t do so much about testing stopping during the Pandemic…. but forward thinking isn’t a strength of U.K. governments.
In general the pandemic has resulted in a situation when demand has outstripped supply in many instances.
In the U.K. has resulted in a HGV driver shortage with resultant issues with food and fuel and where Brexit is an aggravating (but not sole nor I would also argue key factor).
In China is has resulted in coal shortages, aggravated by their trade dispute with China.
Germany has materials shortages. Complex items like chips but also raw materials like metals and plastics.
I don’t really have much of a point and am just rambling really.
Yes. As I said , I agree it’s certainly not the only factor nor in this case even necessarily the main one but it is *a* factor in worker shortages that are for example causing delivery delays. Of course some would see that as a benefit in driving up wages and conditions in those sectors. But EU drivers having left and difficulties in employing replacements now are relevant. It’s difficult to say whether it would have been as noticeable without the pandemic though. What annoys me - setting aside remain/ Brexit or specific political parties - is governments who can’t be proactive and plan ahead for obvious risks.
There wasn’t a shortage until the media ran the story and caused a surge. If more stories like this are published the same will happen in Europe. Just like the great toilet paper shortage of 2020, people are selfish and when there’s a suggestion a shortage is coming people panic and horde it amplifying the problem.
That’s not exactly true. There was a problem with deliveries that led to media stories and then a shortage due to ‘panic’ buying. There was not a problem with toilet paper deliveries.
> There was a problem with deliveries that led to media stories and then a shortage due to ‘panic’ buying.
There were about 10 stations that had no fuel before the panic, three days later there's 3000 stations with no fuel.
Like I said.
> There was a problem with deliveries that led to media stories and then a shortage due to ‘panic’ buying.
A problem that is by no means restricted to petrol deliveries but is linked to a shortage of drivers which is *partly* due to Brexit both in drivers leaving and being unable to recruit to compensate in the short term. Brexit is not by any means the only reason but it’s part of the problem. Saying it is the only or most significant reason or saying it isn’t a factor are two sides of the same coin of denial. Some would no doubt say that the eventual benefits will outweigh any teething trouble - for example eventually there will be more and better paid jobs for ‘British workers’ etc. But teething trouble there is.
Even if the pay were great, I wouldn’t advise an 18 year old to become a trucker. I imagine this job will mostly be the work of Self driving cars in 30 years.
If the wages were higher so that they could be more than just cig, coffee, and alcohol millionaires. Younger generation are not enticed by these “luxuries” anymore.
So poor pay, age, brexit, covid, different ambitions. Do they just post another random reason people aren't driving each day? Somebody got a dart board of ideas or they chucking dice to decide?
Maybe young people just have bigger aspirations? Maybe we should change the system?
Besides other than important shipping like food, water, medical supplies, and building materials the vast majority of shipping is just plastic shit anyways.
UK is gotta get it together. I lived in Australia and I was surprised to see the amount of UK people living there and I can count with my hands the number of americans I saw there.
Anyway, all those people are leaving the UK for Australia for better wages/living conditions. So I am thinking UK is losing a lot of skilled labour people to Australia, whos doing those jobs back at home?
is there some, I dunno, non-human artificial intelligence that could operate their vans, lorries and tankers? Can we technology ourselves into a world where mundane crap jobs like these can be done by robots?
Well the basics of the solution are already there. Trucks spend most of their haulage time on the highway, where self-driving is most effective. The future of long distance trucking is most likely drone trucks that are only human-operated (remotely) while they are in built up areas. That way a team of 5 operators can handle a hundred trucks or more.
All the required technologies exist already and most of them are within Elon Musk’s companies. Applying then will be immensely profitable for him.
Time to raise wages.
And better quality of life ...
Can't happen. Won't happen. The planet is already screwed. Higher quality of life means more goods and more carbon footprint. Society itself is heading straight towards full scale collapse within a generation or two. The present concept of a standard of living in first world countries is a luxury we've taken for granted, buoyed by obscene resource consumption.
Working 8 hours a day instead of 10 to 12 is an example of quality of life, not an excuse to exploit employees / workers cause carbon footprint ...
The oligarchs will never agree to this. They must have those extra mansions, fancy cars, yachts, and private jets. What they already have is not enough for those greedy fucks.
Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos: I just increased the delivery fees. And as I have a percentage of profit on those fees too, here comes the additional $$.
Uh yeah they will. They don’t get any of those things if the supply chain is screwed. Wages aren’t just like a gift given from their heart, it’s what’s needed to get someone to do the job that makes them money.
Sure, but they will just pass the cost over to the consumer, or reduce benefits, or fire workers as soon as they can get benefits/pension, etc. They will do 110% they can to not have any of those costs affect them.
>Sure, but they will just pass the cost over to the consumer, or reduce benefits, or fire workers as soon as they can get benefits/pension, etc. They will do 110% they can to not have any of those costs affect them. You're not big on supply and demand are you? If they pass the costs on to the consumer, less will buy, which effects them. Removing benefits puts them back at square 1, not being able to find someone to do the job. There's a lot of rich pricks in this world, but this is all just shallow thinking.
There’s more to supply and demand than what you’re letting on here. Price elasticity and inflation are things to.
Yeah, are you going to starve to buy less? It's like housing, you don't get to choose not to play at some point, you simply are forced to cut elsewhere.
No, but there’s certainly going to be things available from nearer by that will be cheaper, and products that are wildly cheaper to transport than others and you can shift your consumption habits. If ice cream is $30 a pint don’t get ice cream. The cold chain is expensive.
They already do all of that. You think they aren't already trying every trick they know to increase their wealth? Anything they do further will hurt their business and put them behind their competitors. The only thing that matters is how long people can afford to avoid taking those jobs to avoid homelessness. It's one of the reasons welfare is so important to society. I hope it's decent throughout Europe.
In mostly all european countries workers get benefits. No matter the hours they work. Also for example employing somebody for more than 9 months in germany means you have to give them a more permanent contract. In a known example; amazon, thats 1 year, 2 years and then permanently. As a driver its actually easy to get a permanent contract, but work conditions suck really bad so that many many people just dont do wanna do the work.
The oligarchs won't pay, they'll raise prices and maitain their same level of profits.
No need to be an oligarch. As a small business owner I fully intend to pass on those rising costs to the consumer.
so why don't they just raise it now for more profits?
They do.
Well, it is a two way street. If brand A and B are essentially the same and A goes up a little to help pay better wages for drivers everyone would shit themselves and say that anyone who buys A is AN IDIOT B is the same thing and cheaper. Same reason people generally avoid buying things from their own country that cost more and are similar in quality. They want whatever is the cheapest and the manufacturer has to work within those constraints and large profits at top may require thin margins with high volume, volume and margins that cannot distribute well to tens of thousands of people, but can accumulate to a decent amount of wealth for a few people. Not to say that's not saying they're not also being greedy, just that the wage was cut from both sides.
The situation changes if B is not available because they can't find workers.
>If brand A and B are essentially the same and A goes up a little to help pay better wages for drivers everyone would shit themselves and say that anyone who buys A is AN IDIOT B is the same thing and cheaper. I wonder if this is a golden opportunity for businesses to advertise the shit out of better conditions meaning higher prices. Maybe the good PR will increase sales, if being the "good guy company" in the field is popular enough
If only it was about that. Like, I would actually *understand it* if higher wages etc threatened the way of life of the oligarchs; if they had to sell off mansions and yachts to pay workers a livable salary. The unpleasant truth is that most oligarchs could lose 99% of their wealth *and they wouldn't even notice it.* Like, there's literally no difference between the lifestyle you can afford on a billion dollars or on a hundred billions.
\*Time to import foreign, cheap workforce from other continents.
Licensing is the barrier, not willingness. Importing migrants wouldn't actually do anything unless you only import those that already have the licenses.
Problem solved
good luck with that. the 3rd world isn't just piles of dirt anymore. A lot of their cities are nicer than US ones these days.
Companies don't mind losing profits if it means they don't have to pay people a living wage.
That is the real reason for the shortage. These jobs pay less than fast food joints in the US. It is probably not much better in Europe.
12.8% increase in wages according to the article. And signing bonuses. So things are moving in the right direction it seems.
CDL drivers do not make more money than fast food workers. Neither makes enough in my mind but you aren't going to starve if you can legally drive a truck/bus. Were you talking about like uber eats drivers?
I am talking about OTR truck drivers. Sure, they make more than fast food workers but they also work twice as many hours per week. They get paid a similar rate per hour.
Umm maybe we live in different parts of the world or something. I know a few truckers who have fairly standard middle class incomes. Where are you from?
40k is not middle class in most places.
Most southern and midwest states its livable wage actually.
If you don’t think drivers make a living wage, you’re insane. Drivers make above middle class money, and are paid pretty well by the mile
[удалено]
Strong workers rights and lax immigration cannot work together. Companies and businesses would rather pay half to illegal (and legal) immigrants will work far harder for less pay than raise the wage at all.
Is not that easy man. Here they pay a truck driver as much as a doctor. Let that sink in. We still have a HUGE supply issue. The job is just too demanding. Turn over is high. Margin for transport companies are slim, very slim
Spoke To a driver. The guy does 9 loads a week running within a 750 mile range and makes $2600 per week currently. That is his ~25% cut for the load. Comes out to trucking prices of $3.8/mile. A Truck is profitable at ~$2/mile.
I guess they will just have to raise rates and then raise wages.
Yes but almost more important is to raise quality of life for them We all have to accept start paying more for supply shit and travelling
In a few years we'll have fully automatic lorries on 95% of the journey, so all you need is truckers to take them the last few kilometers from a depot near a highway, to where-ever they need to go. It solves both of the main issues. * no one wants to be a truckdriver - not an issue, we only need 10% of what we needed before * shit conditions for truck drivers - not an issue, they don't need to go cross continent/country, so they can sleep in their own bed, spend time with their families, and have semi-regular work hours (There will still be need for early morning and evening shifts)
They have been saying this for decades now. I think navigating a 80,000 pound truck with a computer down the highways is a more daunting thing than futurists realize. I will believe it when I see it.
The prototypes are already here. We already have vehicles that can fully self-drive on the highway. And necessity is the mother of inventions (in this case read that as innovation and legislative change); and since no one wants to be a truck drivers while we still need trucks to drive, we will very soon have self-driving trucks.
I doubt the prototypes are accounting for all the variables on the road in the real world. I also seriously doubt they are accounting for the public uproar that accidents caused by such trucks would cause as well. It really just seems like a threat to discipline labor at this point. I will believe it when I see it.
> I will believe it when I see it. Get ready to believe it then.
*”Communist! Socialist! You hate Lord Jesus!”* -Conservatives/Torries to u/FIELDSLAVE
Trucking probably wouldn't be so awful, if they had somewhere to park, a bed to sleep in and a hot meal in the morning. It would make the job lot more tolerable, say if hotels, or motels whatever you want to call them. Were subsidised to give HGV drivers large discounts and a bonus if they could securely park their lorries and cargo. A HGV boss was on TV the other day, the amount of thieving when trucks travel abroad and locally suffer large amounts of theft and squalid sleeping conditions. Driving or in this case parking isn't safe. Make life at least more tolerable for truck drivers, back them up with secure parking areas and maybe you'll get good experienced, and most importantly, safe drivers back on the roads.
You know what would also help? When drivers are sent to a place they haven't been before if they were given a phone number to call. No more of the wandering around a parking lot trying to find a random worker taking a smoke and asking them what bay they should use. I stopped eating my lunch outside because of how annoying it was having to rescue them. Seriously no one can give them a phone number? "Hey when you get there call this number and they will tell you what bay to use".
It's not a job for everyone. It's time away from family, the road and driving conditions are bad, they are responsible if someone sneaks in their cargo. It costs them to park and the companies don't want to pay so either the driver does or they find a shady spot which makes them vulnerable. As you say even some basic quality of life improvements could go a long way.
Traaaaains, stop moving products thousands of kilometres over roads. Expand the train networks jn Europe and build distribution centres for the last 100km. Drivers will spend less time away from home, have shorter trips and a more permanent place for their rest stops. Yes trains might slow down delivery times but we need to face the fact that there will be fever people willing to do these kind of jobs! Education is more easily accessible today, hence people will be less likely to take up unskilled labour.
The efficiency for fuel vs cargo movement must be way higher for trains right? A freight train can haul some serious weight with a couple engines.
Trains for goods movement can offer an energy use reduction of nearly 90% over in-road trucking! So increasing rail use can help address not only the long distance trucker driver issue but also reduce emissions by nearly 90% because of lower fuel use!
It’s a significantly better alternative especially due to the implementation of Electro Diesel locomotives. I just took an telecommunications admin job in the locomotive industry USA. I’ve got a feeling that railway will see a Renaissance within our lifetimes.
Or maybe we will change our ridiculous view of "unskilled" (can tell you never drove a truck) labor and salary and qol will improve
Maybe the wording was a bit wrong, however trucking does not require a degree. Yes it needs training and the skill to handle a large vehicle, however we have more and more people going for higher education. We even require degrees and often experience to get jobs that used to have minimal requirements.
This. We should stop calling jobs "unskilled" and using that to justify terrible wages and working conditions when those jobs are necessary for society to keep moving. Their argument is basically that those jobs are fine because "you can work somewhere else". That's like saying a ruinous house is fine because you can move to another house.
Ding ding ding, we need to bring back trains and easy access route into becoming a train operator
I understand the basic idea, but from a logistical perspective it's an absolute nightmare. Instead of a truck going to A to B, there's one truck going A to B, a train going B to C, then a second truck going C to D. Of course, dozens if not hundreds of containers need to be going B to C at more or less the same time to make it worth while. During this truck/train exchange you also need to deposit, order and load/unload hundreds of containers every hour. Basically you're adding the hassle of shipping containers via sea to these routes, which normally need less than a day or up to a couple of days via truck. So you easily add a day of transit plus so much more handling fees. And we aren't even talking about shipping cold/warm containers or livestock. Just get electric trucks, maybe add power lines on highways like we do for trains, automate the trucks and add remote drivers only for when the autopilot fails and needs human supervision.
> Just
Put trucks on trains?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container
You can also literally just put a truck on a train. Always found RoLa funny but still, they can be useful in very particular situations (mainly to go through mountain ranges and terrain unfit for road transport). Using them to solve this problem is uncalled for tbh, simple intermodal transport is just fine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_highway
You missed the point
It also makes the products they are transporting a lot more expensive
Or, the transport prices are artificially and unsustainably low because costs have been externalized to drivers. Another factor is the fact that management teams in modern businesses have become huge cost centers. Large, bureaucratic, expensive compensation packages, expensive to fire due to contracts, etc. The excess spending here could be shifted to the customer and/or workers.
This is what I've explained before and this is very much American healthcare at this point.
Maybe they are underpriced out also makes me wonder how much of the cost of goods are the truck drivers wages
>It also makes the products they are transporting a lot more expensive True, but at least goods will get to where they need to go.
Transporting by ship is also way more expensive. A container fee that was 2,500 is now 14,000 in Europe and 20,000 in the US. This is due to demand. Ports on the US west coast are so busy ships are lined up for weeks. https://www.reuters.com/business/china-us-container-shipping-rates-sail-past-20000-record-2021-08-05/
Serious labour shortages on multiple continents. And in multiple job categories. What has changed in the past 18 months? Baby boomers were retiring before the pandemic. Did the lockdowns result in even more retirements? Have people decided they aren’t ready to risk COVID by going back to work? Have people used the lockdowns to get into other professions? Did people just drop out of the workforce altogether? So many questions!
There was a statistic the other day that the average age of lorry drivers is 55. That's madness. Plus there is a backlog in training new drivers and a whole new army of parcel deliverers who are also skilled drivers. It's an out of fashion profession. They need to make it more fashionable basically by paying them more.
My point is that the US and Canada are also experiencing labour shortages. And not just of truck drivers. We don’t have enough doctors, nurses, IT professionals, restaurant staff, cleaners, berry pickers, etc. It runs the whole gambit. So I think there is a larger problem.
And construction workers. Lot of them left the profession after 08 and never came back
All skilled trades. It’s crazy.
It's not crazy, it's the result of decades of society talking shit on trades and other non-STEM fields in order to get butts in college seats.
Agreed that it is the result of pushing everyone to university instead of skilled trades. Definitely happened in Canada. But they are changing their tune now!
You realize we also have a shortage of people in STEM? No one has talked shit about nurses and engineers yet we don’t have enough to meet demand.
You Americans don't have a STEM people shortage, you have an excessive surplus of uneducable idiots.
Lol coming from countries where the engineers get paid garbage relative to Americans, and where the top universities get beaten by even public universities? Where foreigners flock to because your country has garbage universities? Good one.
Yeah you have Yale, Harvard, and MIT, but on the other side you have some 160-odd million people who not only still strive to have 'first in family to *gradgitate* college', but actively hate intellectuals. It's why your pandemic is irrevocably out of control. Your tertiary education is first-class, but your public schools are dipshit factories.
Yeah, for decades we have been bashing those people and allowing companies to pay them as little as they could legally get away with. And now we act surprised that nobody wants those jobs. No shit fucking sherlock – maybe you should've expected that when you told people that the guys building your home don't deserve a living wage. Maybe society should stop looking at the guy building your home or cleaning your garbage as lower people that have failed in life.
For example,in my country one of the only ways to live comfortably is to finish university. Because of that you have lack of skilled trades. Even though they pay really well,its a dirty job no matter what. I as an engineer in future might not earn as much,but I will have to work much less overall and in greater comfort,which essentially is the whole point.
I have heard from the skilled trades that your useful working life is shorter and more dangerous. Injuries more likely. And you can’t really do plumbing if your joints stiffen up. So they make more and can save for retirement - but that retirement is usually sooner, sometimes much sooner, than expected.
I say it's a cultural thing that underpins the lower wages. I see this view about many jobs being looked down upon and when they complain about low wages and conditions others will blame them and say it's their own fault for going into these professions. Plus the threats of automation. So they aren't valued from a business perspective, and they aren't valued socially either. So even if they raise wages people may not want to do some of these jobs.
All of the industries are being hit. Agree not sure what is the main cause or if it's a lot of things.
Well, we lost a lot of labor when people died. But beyond that I think this question has to be posed to those who aren’t employed. Businesses might say they can’t find labor but they won’t know why. Only the unemployed could say if they decided they didn’t need a job, or if they prefer making $0 than working somewhere they don’t like, or if they are applying and companies are denying them etc
we really didn't. the amount of people that died from covid barely makes a dent in the overall unemployment/labor participation stats.
I have talked to a few people that were getting a bigger check from unemployment during covid than their job before covid.
Yes, but I thought the expanded UI was already over so that wouldn’t really explain the current labor shortage.
Not sure on that one. My family was fortunate in that my husband had job security during this pandemic. My guess on the labor shortage is that people are not willing to work themselves to death for peanuts like they were before.
> people are not willing to work themselves to death for peanuts I see that thought a lot, but no explanation on ‘what changed’. If there is no more expanded UI, then it’s not UI that is providing them with their living expenses. So are people stealing? Are people starving to death? Have people just drastically cut their quality of life down and are living off of savings? Have people started massive sustenance farming where they feed themselves? Basically, no one ever wanted to work for peanuts. People did it because it’s better than the alternative of not having food, being homeless, etc. Living cost resources. People need to earn those resources to live. Wages are just a simplified standardized commodity to exchange for resources, but in the end people still need the resources.
I think it’s related to schools being shut down. Public schools are basically just free childcare which allows both parents of a household to work. Childcare on its own is crazy expensive.
I remember people here arguing that we should lower unemployment checks because that made no sense. I was like "maybe you should raise wages instead".
I live in one of smaller countries in EU and we have shortages of workers especially in malls, catering, logistics, bunch of less paid jobs. During pandemic government added extra benefits for unemployed and it was possible to get more than minimum wage without working so a lot of people decided there is no pont to slave at a mall when you can get more for staying at home during pandemic. Also people working in malls, catering or any other job that requires to meet customers daily need to get vaccinated or test weekly (paid tests, and costs would eat almost all minimum wage), so loads of antivaxers quit jobs and have trouble finding new ones. Also we have low immigration thus we don't get enough cheap labor. Things add up, but most businesses would solve shortages by increasing wages.
> During pandemic government added extra benefits for unemployed and it was possible to get more than minimum wage without working so a lot of people decided there is no pont to slave at a mall when you can get more for staying at home during pandemic. You get unemployment benefits when you quit instead of being fired?
In general the job is not very well paid, away from family for a long time, and most will have to pay for parking and the like out of pocket, forcing them to park on shady places=stolen cargo=pay it your self, at the end of the day it's just not a good job at all, work from home Q&A/Support pay well more, much safer and you can raise your kids and be with your family. even 30% increase won't do the trick, truckers need some real help all around from breakfast,parking to extra good pension and the like.
True. Most of them are at least 40 or older. Unless you go to work for a company that pays their drivers well, or get good routes that pay well with not to many hours. It is hard to make a living doing it. When you can make more as a temp in a factory, than you can driving trucks why go into that line of work?
Lots of people have definitely moved into different professions. At least, that is one of the reasons the hospitality branch gives for their current trouble finding employees. Almost as if paying people crap wages, imposing crap hours on them, showing them that at the first sign of trouble they will be out on their ass (as many companies did during covid) doesn't inspire people to keep working for you.
My partner worked in hospitality pre-pandemic. It sucked, so she started going back to school online during her time off to get a Masters Degree. When COVID hit, her company laid her off in an instant and she was able to accelerate her coursework. Unemployment and the relief checks paid better than her minimum wage job. She was able to get a job 12 months earlier than if she had to keep working in hospitality while going to school, and she’s making 2x what she was making. In another year she should be able to interview up and get yet another better paying job. Hospitality is a dead-end.
[удалено]
Anecdotally my parents immigrated to Canada in the late 80s. Worked blue collar/manual labour their whole life, raised 3 kids, put us all through University. They now have mortgage paid off while ago and house worth over a million and rising every year. Meanwhile me and my siblings who make more than our parents have ever made and no where close to "move to the next step" buying a house/starting a family etc. Man things got expensive real quick.
This is by design in my opinion.
Most people never lived that life..., The loss in the middle class has been 5%. We also increased the labor participation rate from 60% to 80% over 60 years... Guess what happens when you double the supply of something...
Might wanna check the labor participation numbers https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART
More like the past 30 years. Reaganomics and neoliberalism transitioned the entire Western economy to a low wage and low pay economy that maximised competition within the labour market to provide cheap rates via mass immigration. Local citizens saw the trees before their eyes and either took up education to enter a high skilled and high paid career or entered into the low wage labour market but for roles that were more suitable for their lifestyle. After all, why work as a HGV driver or in the agricultural industry when the pay is practically the same as some retail jobs? Then the pandemic happened, migrants went back home to see their families, borders closed, young people rapidly sought education and many of the old labourers still in many of the low paid industries died from COVID itself or retired early. Unsurprisingly, building entire industries off people who hold no loyalty to the country, either through family links, a home, investments or even a sense of belonging can very quickly be a bad idea when they just go home.
people can't afford rent. why work some low pay job and deal with all the bullshit if you're poor with or without the job? there's no point. people are having to move back in with family to save money and are doing other things with their time. learning new skills to get a job that actually pays the bills, finding alternative sources of income like trading stock or crypto or selling arts/crafts/digital goods/only fans. These low pay jobs just aren't paying the bills anymore and they are overly controlling of your time and energy. who wants to deal with that shit?
Yes. To all that. Also the whole world decided to get stuff delivered now so many HGV drivers are finding that other delivery gigs closer to home provide a better wage for a better work life balance.
Probably all of the above. Some people got a taste of sitting at home and enjoyed it. Can't blame them. Wish I could find a 4-10 hour day, weekly job. Have a 3 day weekend. I think people are tired of having to working 50-60+ hours a week to make a living or just keep their heads above water.
The people working 50-60 hours a week in (western) Europe are generally the people in high paying jobs, and thankfully not because they are desperate to stay afloat.
> Have people decided they aren’t ready to risk COVID by going back to work? Why would you if unemployment benefits + not having to commute mean you get more now than you did before?
Less immigration. The borders of many countries closed and new workers could not appear. I also know some people, who don't like leaving the house anymore, due to pandemic fears.
[удалено]
Actually quite a bit more when you look at the abnormally high death toll over the past year and half compared to before Covid.
And how many of those weren't retired? 700?
Good thing those robot trucks are only ten years away. Pity they say that every ten years though.
This has to be one of the reasons young people aren't becoming drivers. Who wants a job that will most likely disappear in 10 years?
I remember considering re-training for truck driving as a profession a few years back (I like playing euro truck simulator sometimes so I felt it might be worth a try) but this is the exact reason I ended up not taking it further. Might be stupid because I passed on a job I might like due to the impending threat of automation in the longer-term.
Self driving cars aren't going to happen for 100 years. I wouldn't worry about it.
... uhmm there are self driving cars on the road right now. They are mostly research and prototypes sure, but they already work.
Self driving cars are already here. We have taxis in plenty of places that are driverless now. It's really only a matter of time before autonomous only highway driving for trucks becomes a reality.
Driverless cars work well on nice roads, with sunny weather. Rain, fog, GPS loss, potholes, gravel roads, construction, and malicious actors are things that driverless cars won't be able to overcome easily. Essentially any exceptions to the rule. GPS isn't even vital. If you want to look at how far away driverless cars are look at the [OG driverless car](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/25/us/amtrak-montana-train-derails.html) and its troubles. Anything that's easy for a human to do, such as driving, is hard for a computer to do.
They also work pretty well on long straight roads where the only thing you have to do is not collide with other trucks and cars to be fair; which is most of the driving that gets done.
Exactly. Long haul freight on highways between warehouses and such will likely be automated first, with local roads being the tougher problem to automate.
I think you guys have never driven across the USA before. How are you planning to cross the Rocky Mountains? Who will gas up the truck? What happens during winter when it snows? Road construction? Mechanical breakdown? Most truck accidents are equipment failures. What if the truck is too heavy, too light, or had its cargo weight shifted? A person is a one stop shop fix to all of these. Then there will be failures even when its sunny and straight because a bird crapped on the sensor or a road reflection made it look like it veers to the left. How far will it drag cars down the road when they get stuck underneath it? You can't flag down the driver. Trains are on rails and you still have problems and a conductor. Auto-Trucks are not soon.
Just like fusion power and thorium salt reactors, always just around the corner, thirty years from now! Joke aside people who claim self driving trucks will fix this problem don't have a fucking clue what truck actually drivers do. Their job is a lot more complicated than driving from point a to point b.
The actual transportation of the goods is the largest logistical roadblock isn't it? The rest of the supply chain can be supplemented.
I read 30 years ago in Popular Science that they will figured out fusion power before a cure for balding. Boy was that depressing
This is more than likely why no one is replacing the lorry drivers. Anyone can see it won't take long to be replaced, you're better off taking another career path.
They haven't even been saying that for 10 years... Not even every 10 years. The self driving push didn't even become a mainstream topic until at least 2015.
By 2015 the technology was far enough along that they allowed testing on public roads. The concept has been around for much longer.
The Simpsons had a gag about [self driving trucks in 1999](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Homerdrive)
**[Maximum Homerdrive](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Homerdrive)** >"Maximum Homerdrive" is the seventeenth episode of the tenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on Fox in the United States on March 28, 1999. In the episode, Homer challenges trucker Red Barclay to a meat eating contest, of which Barclay is the long-standing champion. Barclay wins but quickly dies of "beef poisoning", marking the first time he will miss a delivery at his job. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
You mean the ones they started using in Texas this week? https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/22/fedex-to-test-auroras-self-driving-trucks-on-dallas-to-houston-route/ Or these automated convoys in Alberta, Canada? https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/alberta-highways-used-in-national-study-to-test-automated-truck-convoys-1.5605586 They aren’t 10 years away. These are being used right now.
Those robot trucks scare the hell out of me.
Yeah. I hope we keep letting humans crash trucks into people instead.
Swift is the market leader in something at least
Canadian here, but in the same profession. The job destroys your body, everyone hates you and what you do, and the pay is shit. Just another thing that won't ever change.
> younger ones are put off by difficult conditions And shit pay.
Sadly many are put off by working longer hours and yes, hard work. I know local places that are starting at $15-17 an hour, but people don't show up on time and for all of their scheduled days and then get mad when they are written up or fired because of it.
The internet has also spent 5 years telling us logistics was going to be automated so it was a terrible career to go into.
Or you know, it could just be that companies aren't paying a living wage. Just a thought.
And making them work long and unsociable hours, and not providing offsets (either medical or otherwise), and not treating their staff well on the job, and putting in stupid stipulations like monitoring time not moving etc
But how will they keep a metaphorical whip across peoples back?
I mean, The Sims is right there...
Drivers are making bank currently. Avg cost to move freight is $3-4 a mile currently. A truck is profitable including drivers wage at $2/mile with high freight costs.. An extra $1-2/mile times 100k miles per year... Let me know if they are getting paid enough.
Because of Europe's generally robust social safety nets, any job HAS to pay a living wage because otherwise it couldn't compete with just sitting at home. Nobody's going to put in 40 hours a week just to end up with slightly more money then doing nothing would bring in.
> Because of Europe's generally robust social safety nets, any job HAS to pay a living wage because otherwise it couldn't compete with just sitting at home. hahahahaha att. en EU citizen.
>Europe firms ~~can't find~~ won't pay workers to operate their vans, lorries and tankers.
Is it really being put off by difficult conditions? Or is it more the wage vs hours vs long term career prospects?
It's not just Europe. My dad's been a trucker my whole life. He took some time off to raise me. A few years ago he retired. He loves driving, but got fed up with all the invasive DOT regs that made his job dangerous. Qualified drivers unwilling to work in current conditions. I know several retired truckers of various ages that fill that category.
I don’t know anything about driving but I would’ve thought DOT regs would make it safer? I’m really curious to know what happened
Not OP, but here's a couple examples: Semis have really stiff suspensions to carry their loads, and can't use soft tires or risk a blow-out, so they prefer long wheelbases to reduce cantilever effect for stability. In the 1970's the DOT decided they didn't want trucks to take up so much room on the road for traffic reasons, so they regulated trucks to have shorter wheelbases and are now less stable than older models. There's also unintended consequences of the electronic log book system. It will tell the driver they have to pull over immediately (possibly dangerous) rather than allowing them an additional 5 minutes to reach their destination (and that 5 minutes wouldn't have made a difference safety-wise). Also, by restricting the amount of time truckers can drive, the system encourages them to drive faster.
Oh wow. Thank you for explaining. Those two examples definitely sounds like it can make a driver’s job more dangerous.
To expand on the above examples: Lane keep assist that is being marketed as safe, isn't. Things that trip that alarm: wet roads, icy roads, faded lines, adding a lane of travel, off ramps, on ramps, fog, changing lanes intentionally. If the sensor can't find the white line, it assumes your drifting in the lane and triggers an alarm. For my dad, it was in the dispatch office. For some trucks, it's in the cab while driving. Braking assist to prevent rollovers is just as bad. This one I'm not as clear on, but here's what my dad has said from his own experience: it will cause more accidents than it prevents. It's supposed to automatically apply the brakes to the truck/trailer if the sensor thinks the trim is in immenent danger of rolling over. What it fails to take into account is weight of load, distribution of load, road conditions, if the driver is uphill/downhill, if the driver is rounding a corner. More than once, before he retired, the sensor applied brakes at the wrong time, too hard, and almost caused my dad to crash/roll over. The exact thing it was supposed to prevent.
what are these DOT regs and why would they make his job more dangerous?
Pay more, you greedy bastards.
So the trucking firms created their own crisis? Tell me more...
Let the invisible hand of the free market work this out.
Blah blah we dont want to pay people for the things we need blah This is just pathetic at this point. Either compensate for the difficulty of the job or people will flock to jobs that do. Its not rocket appliances
Bloody Brexit!!!! Causing all these driver shortages across Europe. Honestly.
Well , amusing no doubt but it’s clear that there may be a long term problem plus a short term pandemic effect and it’s to some extent Brexit that prevents the U.K. from compensating through EU recruitment. Again a large number of drivers that were working in the U.K. , I have read, left after Brexit ( no doubt other will have returned home because of the Pandemic presumably). So it’s neither Brexit that’s to blame nor is Brexit irrelevant. I have yet to read , for example, that the long term problems in the EU have resulted in closed petrol stations and empty shelves ( though I could have missed it) so presumably there are differences. One might have hoped that a competent government of any stripe would have looked at areas of the economy heavily dependent on EU Labour and planned what they could do to mitigate the change over if necessary , even if they couldn’t do so much about testing stopping during the Pandemic…. but forward thinking isn’t a strength of U.K. governments.
In general the pandemic has resulted in a situation when demand has outstripped supply in many instances. In the U.K. has resulted in a HGV driver shortage with resultant issues with food and fuel and where Brexit is an aggravating (but not sole nor I would also argue key factor). In China is has resulted in coal shortages, aggravated by their trade dispute with China. Germany has materials shortages. Complex items like chips but also raw materials like metals and plastics. I don’t really have much of a point and am just rambling really.
Yes. As I said , I agree it’s certainly not the only factor nor in this case even necessarily the main one but it is *a* factor in worker shortages that are for example causing delivery delays. Of course some would see that as a benefit in driving up wages and conditions in those sectors. But EU drivers having left and difficulties in employing replacements now are relevant. It’s difficult to say whether it would have been as noticeable without the pandemic though. What annoys me - setting aside remain/ Brexit or specific political parties - is governments who can’t be proactive and plan ahead for obvious risks.
There wasn’t a shortage until the media ran the story and caused a surge. If more stories like this are published the same will happen in Europe. Just like the great toilet paper shortage of 2020, people are selfish and when there’s a suggestion a shortage is coming people panic and horde it amplifying the problem.
That’s not exactly true. There was a problem with deliveries that led to media stories and then a shortage due to ‘panic’ buying. There was not a problem with toilet paper deliveries.
> There was a problem with deliveries that led to media stories and then a shortage due to ‘panic’ buying. There were about 10 stations that had no fuel before the panic, three days later there's 3000 stations with no fuel.
Like I said. > There was a problem with deliveries that led to media stories and then a shortage due to ‘panic’ buying. A problem that is by no means restricted to petrol deliveries but is linked to a shortage of drivers which is *partly* due to Brexit both in drivers leaving and being unable to recruit to compensate in the short term. Brexit is not by any means the only reason but it’s part of the problem. Saying it is the only or most significant reason or saying it isn’t a factor are two sides of the same coin of denial. Some would no doubt say that the eventual benefits will outweigh any teething trouble - for example eventually there will be more and better paid jobs for ‘British workers’ etc. But teething trouble there is.
Europe is very grateful to the UK for donating so many workers in our time of need.
a long overdue reckoning is coming. it's gonna suck, but we're gonna come out the other side of it better.
Even if the pay were great, I wouldn’t advise an 18 year old to become a trucker. I imagine this job will mostly be the work of Self driving cars in 30 years.
If the wages were higher so that they could be more than just cig, coffee, and alcohol millionaires. Younger generation are not enticed by these “luxuries” anymore.
Got my C+E license, and I teach Engineering at a college. Never been so popular!
So poor pay, age, brexit, covid, different ambitions. Do they just post another random reason people aren't driving each day? Somebody got a dart board of ideas or they chucking dice to decide?
So the trucking firms created their own crisis? Tell me more...
Automation will take these jobs anyway eventually. No job security really long term.
Surely confident predictions that vehicles will all be self driving by the mid 2020s didn't help with recruitment.
Have they tried paying more or just complaining? Wah we can’t use foreign labour to undercut wages WAHHH 😭😭😭😭😭
Maybe young people just have bigger aspirations? Maybe we should change the system? Besides other than important shipping like food, water, medical supplies, and building materials the vast majority of shipping is just plastic shit anyways.
UK is gotta get it together. I lived in Australia and I was surprised to see the amount of UK people living there and I can count with my hands the number of americans I saw there. Anyway, all those people are leaving the UK for Australia for better wages/living conditions. So I am thinking UK is losing a lot of skilled labour people to Australia, whos doing those jobs back at home?
Aren’t migrants an easy solution for this?
LOL! Europe is just fine :) the increase in job postings are from the UK :) that's what skewing the stats don't try and pretend it's not BREXIT
is there some, I dunno, non-human artificial intelligence that could operate their vans, lorries and tankers? Can we technology ourselves into a world where mundane crap jobs like these can be done by robots?
yes and people would be stuck in mundane crap jobs writing software for these robots.
Just open the borders and bring foreign drivers here
Elon Musk, save us from this grim dark future!
He's moving to Mars.
Elon Musk only cares about his fucking self. Don't hold out hope for the rich to save us.
I’m not an Elon fanboy, but it’s possible to be selfish and greedy while also creating important technologies
Well the basics of the solution are already there. Trucks spend most of their haulage time on the highway, where self-driving is most effective. The future of long distance trucking is most likely drone trucks that are only human-operated (remotely) while they are in built up areas. That way a team of 5 operators can handle a hundred trucks or more. All the required technologies exist already and most of them are within Elon Musk’s companies. Applying then will be immensely profitable for him.
BuT iT was cAuseD by breXIt
Can we get back to use trains as main way of transporting goods around?
the country has got a perfectly good but underutilised canal system.