Drive for Britain! UK scrambles for truckers amid supply woe

LONDON (AP) — In Britain, this is the season of shortages: Milkshakes were off the menu for weeks at McDonald's, chicken has been in short supply at KFC, some gas stations have run out of fuel and there are gaps on supermarket shelves.

The problems have several causes, but one stands out: There just aren’t enough truck drivers. The U.K. is short tens of thousands of drivers, as factors including Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic converge to create a supply-chain crunch.

With the industry raising the specter of Christmas shortages of turkeys and toys, the government is scrambling to lure more people into truck driving, long viewed as an underpaid and underappreciated job.

“Driving isn’t seen as a 21st-century sexy vocation,” said Laurence Bolton, managing director of the National Driving Centre, a family-owned school for truck drivers in the London suburb of Croydon.

But that is starting to change. Bolton’s school has seen a 20% increase in applicants since the U.K.’s pandemic restrictions eased earlier this year, with bus drivers, laid-off hospitality workers and even former airline pilots seeking to retrain as truckers, a suddenly in-demand and increasingly well-paid occupation.

“It opens up the opportunities,” said 31-year-old Stephen Thrower, who works as a van driver but is training on trucks. “It’s more of a job for life.”

As a trainee trucker practiced reversing a huge rig between orange cones at the school’s asphalt lot, Bolton reeled off the ingredients that have made for a trucking crisis. Britain’s departure from the European Union prompted some European workers to head home. The British government closed a loophole that many drivers used to keep tax payments down. COVID-19 lockdowns halted driver testing for months, stopping the flow of new truckers.

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