RE: South Africa Shareholders26 Sep 2021 14:38
You sound like the typical Guardian reader to me, Tricky, who believes the Government should be responsible for everything. If you were a haulage company wouldn't you actually be responsible for making sure you have enough drivers by paying them well enough? Courtesy of The Spectator:
"The Road Haulage Association (RHA) has complained of a shortage of 100,000 lorry drivers, which is leading to shortages in the shops. What is to blame?
— Prior to the pandemic and Brexit, about 600,000 lorry drivers were employed in Britain.
— It is an ageing group of workers, with an average age of 55. Fewer than 1% are aged under 25 and 13% are over 60.
— Prior to Brexit, 100,000 drivers working in Britain were foreign nationals.
— Prior to the pandemic and Brexit, the RHA was already claiming a shortage of 60,000 drivers.
— The industry relies on a high turnover. In a normal year before the pandemic, around 72,000 candidates applied for licences, 40,000 of whom were successful.
— Lockdowns led to the loss of 30,000 test slots. As a result, last year only 15,000 completed their training."
I can get a plumber without problem but then I don't live in London. And if you, on the one hand, encourage everyone to go to university and praise that 50% of school leavers are as a great achievement, despite their Media Studies "qualifications", you can hardly be surprised that far fewer young people see plumbing and lorry driving as a way forward as witnessed by the demographic of the industry. Neither of these professions, though, are going to lead the country into the brighter uplands of the future - they are basic services and the latter is liable to be entirely automated in the not too distant..... The UK is famous for innovative, ground breaking services and technologies, and that IS the future, along with returning manufacturing from China.
The EU is not an economy ... and you only have to look at the various countries in the EU that are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy to see how very vulnerable the bloc and the Euro is to collapse. Increasingly, the rich nations of the developed North West of Europe are going to view being tied to the poor agricultural ones of the south as problematic. That fault line has always been the Achilles Heel of the EU. The UK being no longer hog-tied to the ever more bureaucratic EU is now free to change direction and policy as the future plays out.
As for so many being on the breadline as you put it..... Maybe that is why so many immigrants are trying to flock here each year, risking their lives to row from one of the renowned countries of culture to reach our little island and enjoy our breadline lifestyle? People here need to wake up and realise just how "good they got it", start backing the country instead of knocking it and get on with contributing to us continuing to be being a world leader in so many ways.
Sign In
Follow the stocks
