• Hauliers must give jobs to newly qualified drivers if the driver shortage is to be alleviated.
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This is the opinion of many HGV drivers who responded to our recruitment feature which detailed the effect driver shortages are having on the haulage industry (CM16-22 November).
The drivers insist employers are partly to blame for the crisis, because they demand two years' experience at interviews and won't budge from that position (see Letters, page 22).
Lancashire-based driver Paul Kelly says: "This is a classic Catch-22 situation. How can drivers gain this valuable experience if prospective employers won't hire them?"
Kelly, who has recently found a driving job by knowing the owner of a small firm, was told at one interview that the two years' experience is a stipulation of that company's insurance terms.
But, according to Ian Hether ington, the chief executive of the Road Haulage & Distribution Training Council, the insurance industry is not driving this demand.
"Hauliers want two years' experience because it suggests a degree of competence that does not come with the test certificate," he says. "Traditionally in this country the industry has not paid to train the next generation of drivers, but this has to change.
"The Chancellor has made his announcement; we're doing our bit to improve things; but employers are going to have to ask themselves what they are doing to end the driver shortage," Hetherington adds.