Wholesalers are “not out of the storm yet” and still face the prospect of supply and staff shortages in 2022, warned the top boss of wholesalers’ body.
Chief Executive of Federation of Wholesale Distributors (FWD) James Bielby said that while a return to a ‘normal’ year post-Covid is welcome, wholesalers are still facing the driver and staff shortage.
“The HGV driver situation has, on the face of it, slightly improved,” Bielby wrote in a column in Wholesale News, before adding that wholesalers are looking anxiously towards Easter and the warmer spring days and wondering if we could be heading back to the strangled supply issues.
“The Road Haulage Association says the shortfall is now 80,000 qualified drivers, down from 100,000 six months ago and that can be put down to some who had left the job being enticed back by significantly higher wages, as well as the first signs of an influx of newly trained and tested licence holders.
“However, it doesn’t appear that very many of them have yet found their way either to wholesalers or to the suppliers or contracted hauliers who deliver into them."
Apart from driver issues, wholesalers are also dealing with staff shortage and are currently working on the complex wage and benefit equations that will enable them to keep the experienced staff they have and attract the new blood they need.
“Then there’s the cost of energy, where rises hit hardest when you’ve got big sheds to be lit, heated, chilled and frozen, and delivery vehicles to be fuelled. And let’s not forget the delays, bureaucracy and disruption at ports, which is still to fully reveal itself, with full checks on imports not coming in until July,” pointed out Bielby.
“This is going to be the big story of the year ahead- who absorbs what, where, and how much finds its way all the way to consumers,” he wrote.
