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Welsh Recruitment

Recruitment News

Up-to-the-minute employment and recruitment news throughout South Wales.

Wales needs young drivers

For years, young drivers have received a press for recklessness, joyriding and the like. But now it seems that drivers under the age of 25 are being eagerly sought after to help save the Welsh logistics industry.

Research from Skills for Logistics has found that only 5 per cent of heavy goods vehicle drivers in Wales are under the age of 24 and 1 in 5 are aged over 55 years. On the face of it you may be thinking, ‘so what’?
However, the problem is that one fifth of drivers leave the industry every year due to retirement or ill health and less than 1 in 10 vacancies are filled by people new to the job.
In other words, the industry is becoming dominated by older and experienced drivers and not by people coming into the industry and, the fear is that if this trend continues then there simply won’t be enough supply of drivers to meet the demand.
Therefore, many Welsh employers are making moves to tackle the problem.
Efforts are being made to offer training and NVQ level qualifications to entice more young people and women to consider a career as a HGV driver.
Ian Hetherington, chief executive at Skills for Logistics, said: “We know that companies who offer continual professional development schemes have a lower turnover of staff. Wales is showing the rest of the UK how it should be done – offering more training and employing more woman drivers.”

(Picture: Heavy Goods Vehicle)

For more information on how to get into the industry, visit: www.skillsforlogistics.org

Key Facts

89% - of respondents in a survey admitted that they don’t feel guilty about lying on their CV or in a job interview. (Peninsula)

40% - of people have a strong dislike of a fellow colleage (jobsview)

55% - of UK workers have or are planning a complete change in their careers (Monster)

70% - of workers are prepared to lie to get a promotion (Peninsula)

366,400 – is the record number of students who have accepted places at university this year (UCAS)
Facebook or Face-the-sack-book?

Several organisations in the UK have banned their employees from using social networking sites such as Facebook due to potential time-wasting and legal issues.

However, Britain’s biggest trade union, the TUC, has urged employers not to ban such sites, warning that to do so would be an ‘extreme reaction’.
Brendan Barber, general secretary, warns that the problem could be on track to get bigger in the future.
“Simply cracking down on use of new web tools like Facebook is not a sensible
solution to a problem,” he said. “It’s unreasonable for employers to try to stop their staff from having a life outside work.”
To address the issue it has been recommended that employers set out guidelines for using Facebook and such sites at work. There needs to be a balance between what is and isn’t acceptable, such as permitting staff to access the sites during their non-working lunchtime.
However, if employees are clamouring over themselves to access the sites during their working day, then perhaps employers need to address the issues over why their staff feel the need to go online at all. An escape from the humdrum day, perhaps?