The UK’s national shortage of lorry drivers has seen some supermarkets start to advertise jobs on the road with wages up to nearly £57,000 a year.
According to reports in Birmingham Live and The Times, hauliers have warned that there is currently a shortfall of around 100,000 lorry drivers out of a pre-pandemic total of about 600,000 – which has lead to highly-publicised scenes of empty shop shelves up and down the country.
This has been driven by a combination of both post-EU Brexit rules, and thousands of European drivers leaving during the pandemic and not returning.
“High numbers” of workers retiring is also said to be a contributing factor, with 55 being the average age of a HGV driver in the UK.
Gist – a logistics company that delivers for Tesco, M&S, Aldi, Morrisons and Ocado – is offering annual pay of up to £56,674 for LGV drivers, and the scarcity of delivery staff has also seen Waitrose up its wages to £53,780, plus a whopping £1,000 joining bonus.
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The supermarket chain says it has put up the pay for truckers by an average of £7,000 in the past 18 months.
Hauliers have warned that there is currently a shortfall of around 100,000 lorry drivers / Credit: Flickr
Tesco and Iceland has also bumped up salaries by up to 25%, with sign up bonuses of at least £1,000, and M&S also has a joining incentive of £2,000.
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James Clifford – boss of HGTVtraining.co.uk – said new recruits could make up to £60,000 a year.
A lorry driver earning £53,780 a year would be making more than the average salary for secondary school teachers (£40,880), solicitors (£43,190), and architects (£42,930) – the Road Haulage Association have said the “substantial” pay rises offered by firms in need of new drivers could force supermarket bosses to pass the costs on to customers.
The UK government introduced a seasonal worker visa scheme in December for 30,000 workers, which was primarily for the summer fruit picking season – but meat processors were excluded.
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Rod McKenzie – Managing Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the Road Haulage Association – said the shortage of drivers needs urgent government action, and firms have offered better incentives and pay deals to secure potential recruits.
Some supermarkets have started to advertise jobs on the road with wages up to nearly £57,000 a year / Credit: Pixabay
“Certainly drivers’ pay is increasing, often by quite substantial amounts,” he said.
“This in turn is a cost that will need to be passed on, and given the tight profit margins of most haulage operators, that means their rates to customers will have to go up.
“In turn, this may mean more of us paying higher prices for goods, services and shopping – including food prices – going forward.”
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The cheapest Christmas Markets in the world for mulled wine have been revealed
Daisy Jackson
The most affordable Christmas Markets for drinking mulled wine have been revealed – and Manchester is nowhere in sight.
With Christmas markets across Europe preparing to welcome millions of visitors, festive fans looking to enjoy a warming cup of glühwein without breaking the bank might want to take note of the latest findings.
Festive experts at Christmas Tree World have analysed mulled wine prices at Christmas markets around the world to discover where visitors can enjoy the seasonal favourite for less.
Topping the rankings is Brussels’ Winter Wonders, where mulled wine is available for as little as £2.14 – about a third of the price of a mulled wine at the Manchester Christmas Markets.
Cologne Cathedral Christmas Markets and Strasbourg’s Christkindelsmärik share second place, with starting prices of just £2.56.
Other European favourites also feature prominently in the rankings. Budapest’s Christmas Market at the Basilica takes fourth place, with mulled wine costing £3.19, while Prague’s Old Town Square Christmas Market comes in sixth at £3.55.
Germany makes another strong appearance, with Dresden’s Striezelmarkt and Nuremberg’s Christkindlesmarkt (which handily just launched new direct flights from Manchester) both offering mulled wine for £3.85.
Meanwhile, Vienna’s Christmas World rounds off the European entries in ninth place, with prices starting at £4.28.
For those planning a festive adventure further afield, Tokyo’s Christmas Market also makes the top five, with mulled wine costing £3.22.
However, not every destination offers such a bargain. Across the Atlantic, New York City’s Winter Village takes the title of the most expensive market in the study, with mulled wine costing a rather less festive £11.74. Chicago’s Christkindlmarket isn’t far behind, charging £8.80.
Manchester Christmas Markets start on Friday 6 November – we’ll see how our prices stack up then.
Sir Ian McKellen pays emotional tribute to long-time friend and fellow northern actor Sir Patrick Stewart
Emily Sergeant
Sir Ian McKellen has paid an emotional tribute to his long-time friend and fellow northern actor, Sir Patrick Stewart, following his death.
Sir Patrick Stewart – who was born and bred in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, and is best-known for his theatre work alongside an illustrious 60-year screen career, taking on prominent roles in franchises such as Star Trek and X-Men – sadly passed away at the age of 86, with his death being announced publicly yesterday evening (29 October).
And now, his long-time friend and fellow northern actor, Sir Ian McKellen, has paid tribute.
Sir Patrick and Sir Ian shared the stage together countless times over their decades-long careers, but also famously starred alongside each other in the X-Men franchise, and subsequent Marvel movies, as Charles Xavier/Professor X and Magneto.
The tribute, shared across Sir Ian’s social media platforms, reads: “Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.
“We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions.
“My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in ‘Star Trek’. “But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”
“Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did, for not just his devoted Trekkies, but film and theatre audiences who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (‘X-Men’ of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.
“America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin.
“But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire.”
The Manc -
31st August 2021 
