• A few weeks ago Commercial Motor was receiving quite
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a few letters from unemployed HGV drivers. Their main complaint was that after spending so much money on getting the licence it was proving impossible in many areas to find work.
Norman Curl is a director of Drivers I3ureau, an employment agency which specialises in road transport work. Mr Curl tells me that in 1986, in an attempt to attract temporary staff the bureau offered holiday pay and an opportunity for a winter holiday in the Canary Islands to drivers and other industrial workers who worked a qualifying 105 days from July to Christmas. Out of hundreds of people for whom the agency found work in that year just four men qualified for holiday pay. This is despite the fact that the amount of work available far exceeds the demand. Curl is baffled by this situation. "I can give any HGV driver work that will keep him in a job for longer than 105 days. Jobs are readily available".
In fact the bureau was so desperate for drivers that in sonic cases, it helped people from the Midlands to find accommodation near the places of work. Curl adds, "I've had so many drivers come and go that I'm becoming sceptical about claims that everyone wants to work."
The Drivers Bureau has offices in London, Staines arid Birmingham. The Head Office is situated at 221 Streatham High Road, Streatham, London SW16 6J1.. Telephone: 01-677 9655.