Truck driver shortage leads to risk of truck driver shortage in the UK | Globalism

The UK transport industry has been hit in recent months by a shortage of heavy vehicle driverswhich negatively affected the fuel supply chain across the country, and Have the government announce measures to mitigate the problem.

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As reported by UK consumers Empty shelves in several facilities due to delivery interruption. Some companies, notably large supermarket chains, have already acknowledged the shortages of some products.

The truck driver crisis is due to a combination of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Britain’s exit from the European Union (UK’s exit from the European Union) and other factors.

The UK Logistics Association estimates it needs around 90,000 heavy vehicle driversHe attributed the scarcity to the pandemic, financial changes, Brexit, an aging workforce, low wages and poor working conditions.

Last week, British oil company BP announced it was forced to “temporarily” close some of its stations due to a fuel shortage.

Other operators linked to Esso Oil confirmed that a “small number” of their gas stations were damaged.

Sunday morning (9/26) there were reports of dozens of cars queuing in London, and several gas stations with signs saying they had no more fuel.

On the other hand, there are stations that claim to receive supplies and operate normally.

The British government says there is no shortage of gasoline, and that the problems with the supply of fuel boil down to a rush to buy due to the panic of the population.

“There is no shortage of fuel” and people should be “reasonable” and only refuel when they need it, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme.

Shapps said it is offering a “large package” of measures, including temporary visas for truck drivers, to help with the situation.

The measure aims to attract drivers from countries in European Union They would have stopped entering the UK because of the bureaucracy that was introduced as an effect of the so-called Brexit, the UK’s exit from the European Union.

The customs paperwork requirements created by Brexit made the journey take longer, which increased the cost of transportation.

Britain’s transport minister said he did not want to “do harm” to the country’s workers, but could not stand idly by while lines were being formed.

In addition, he said, the situation will recover, because unlike the toilet paper shortage at the beginning of the pandemic, when there was another rush of people freaking out about product shortages, it’s hard to stock up on fuel.

To prevent possible outages in the run-up to Christmas, the government package states that Up to 10,500 truck drivers and poultry workers can obtain visas for the United Kingdom.

The government has confirmed that 5,000 truck drivers will be able to work in the UK for three months, until Christmas Eve, as well as 5,500 poultry workers.

But the British Chamber of Commerce said the measures amounted to “throwing a thimble of water into a fire”.

Mark Fels, director of the Heavy Vehicle Drivers Employment Center, said visas for truck drivers were “too low” and came “too late”.

However, the news was well received by the UK’s Logistics Association, which described the policy as a “major step forward in resolving supply chain disruption”.

The British Poultry Council has already warned that it may not have enough manpower to process as many turkeys as it did before Christmas this year, as it historically depends on the EU workforce.

The group says that after Brexit, it has become more difficult and expensive to hire workers from outside the UK.

Britain’s Department for Transport said it understood that importing foreign labor “would not be a long-term solution” to the problem and that it wanted employers to invest to build a “high-wage, high-skill economy”.