In the UK, soldiers are said to be on duty from Monday to curb the ongoing fuel shortage at British petrol stations. Almost 200 members of the armed forces, including 100 truck drivers, are to provide “temporary” support, the British government announced on Saturday.
In addition, offers for foreign truck drivers are to be expanded. Up to 300 drivers from abroad should receive immediate work visas, which should be valid until March. So far, the government had tried to lure applicants from abroad to the island with temporary visas until Christmas.
Government writes to Germans with old driving licenses
A number of Germans living in Great Britain with an older driver’s license have also received mail from the British government due to the acute shortage of truck drivers. The newspaper reports Independent. Thousands of Germans in the country who had obtained their driver’s license before 1999 were written to as they were allowed to drive smaller trucks with a maximum weight of 7.5 tons.
In the letter from the Ministry of Transport, which the newspaper has received, it is suggested to those addressed to consider a “return” to the trucking industry – even if many of the addressees have never been behind the wheel of a truck. “There are great opportunities for truck drivers in the logistics industry and working conditions have improved across the sector,” the letter said. “Your skills and experience have never been needed more than they are now.”
The UK Department of Transportation said the letter had been sent to nearly a million people with truck drivers’ licenses. For data protection reasons, it was impossible to filter the list of recipients more precisely by occupation.
The situation is improving in some parts of the country
“It’s nice to know that there are still job prospects for us after Brexit,” said a 41-year-old German who lives with his wife in London Independent. “If we had gone to Germany, we would probably never have been recruited as truck drivers by headhunters.” For now, however, he wants to keep his job at an investment bank, and his wife has never driven a bigger car than a Volvo and will probably turn down the “exciting opportunity”.
The acute driver shortage is currently having drastic consequences on the island: In Great Britain there have been extreme bottlenecks at many petrol stations for more than a week. Many are closed. Long queues form at the others, as many tankers cannot deliver on time. Supermarket shelves have also remained partially empty. Many drivers from Eastern Europe left the country during the pandemic. Strict entry rules after Brexit ensure that many do not return.
In some parts of the country, the situation is said to have improved. According to a large petrol station association, this does not apply to London and the south-east. While the situation in Scotland, the north of England and parts of the Midlands has improved, it has “at best gotten worse” in the south, said Brian Madderson, head of the Petrol Retailers Association, of the BBC.