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McDonald’s said it will stop selling milkshakes due to a lack of supplies to produce them.
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This week the fast food chain McDonald’s in the United Kingdom made a categorical announcement: it ran out of resources to produce milkshakes in 1,250 stores around the country.
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But this news is only a symptom of a bigger problem: the UK supply chain crisis.
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It is estimated that the transportation sector alone needs to fill nearly 100,000 vacancies to meet the demand in the country.
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And it was warned that if the government does not do something soon about it, there may be shortages in most supermarkets.
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It’s not just transport: the British Association of Independent Meat Producers said this week that it asked the Ministry of Justice to expand the quota of prisoners with permits to be hired in meat processing tasks to fulfill your orders.
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They point out that they have about 14,000 vacancies that they have not been able to fill.
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“The industry is having trouble finding people to fill these vacancies. Several of our associates have hired prisoners with special permits, but they are not enough,” Tony Goodger, of the association, told the newspaper. The Guardian.
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Image source, Getty Images
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The transport sector indicates that it has 100,000 vacancies that it has not been able to fill.
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“And the Ministry told us that they were in high demand and that we had already covered our quota of prisoners that we could hire,” he added.
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But what are the reasons for this crisis?
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A perfect storm caused by Brexit and the covid-19 pandemic could be part of the answer.
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Brexit and covid-19
To understand the problem, we could focus our attention on the item most affected: transportation.
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In early August, the UK Road Transporters Association (RHA) issued the alert: 100,000 truck drivers were needed to meet market demand.
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The United Kingdom had just come out of all restrictions due to the pandemic, the economy was beginning to reactivate, but when it came to meeting the demand for orders, the problems began.
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There are several reasons why the shortage has become so severe. First, the covid-19 pandemic bears part of the responsibility.
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As travel became increasingly restricted last year and much of the economy shut down, many European drivers went home.
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Image source, Getty Images
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Distributors and meat processors indicated that they have had to request the services of the prisoners in order to comply with the demand.
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And trucking companies have noted that very few have returned.
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In addition, the pandemic has also created a long delay in the tests that heavy vehicle drivers take to obtain their license, making it impossible to get enough new drivers behind the wheel.
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The trucking associations sent Prime Minister Boris Johnson a letter in June informing him that 25,000 people had turned up. less to those tests than that I know they aimed in 2020.
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Before the pandemic changed everything in March 2020, Brexit -the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union- had become effective a couple of months before and things were already beginning to show this type of inconvenience.
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According to the same carrier associations, Brexit was one of the reasons bys that many drivers with European citizenship returned to their countries of origin or decided to work elsewhere.
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When the UK was part of the EU single market, drivers used to be able to come and go as they wanted.
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But the border bureaucracy that was included after Brexit meant that it was too difficult for most of them to get in and out of the UK, preferring to stay working within EU countries.
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Image source, Getty Images
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The restaurant and hotel sector is one of the most important for the British economy.
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As noted, drivers are paid by the mile or kilometer rather than by the hour, so delays cost them money.
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One of the people who refers to that is the driver Shona Harnett, who notes that the issue of hours discourages some potential new drivers.
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“Many people will say that money is not enough for what work is. I never had a problem with money, but hours are the main thing to make it worthwhile,” he told the BBC.
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Other items
And these reasons have also caused a shortage of staff in other sectors.
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For example, the British Poultry Council warned that one in six jobs, almost 7,000 positions, were left unfilled as a result of European Union workers returning home.
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And that this situation could affect turkey supply on Christmas, which is the main dish in the celebration from many british households.
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Not only meat processors had to recruit prisoners and ex-convicts to supply the demand for this end of the year, but the hospitality industry has been in trouble to get employees for their businesses.
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This business is the third largest private sector recruiter in the UK.
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According to the British Office for National Statistics, there were around 102,000 vacancies in the sector as of June, representing an increase of 12.1% compared to with the figure of 91,000 for the same period in 2019.
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Now, the analysis made by experts is that the effect of Brexit and the covid-19 pandemic in this field had a different touch: people who stopped working for this sector realized that they paid better in other jobs, and not they returned.
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Image source, Getty Images
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Food transport has been seriously affected by staff shortages.
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“Brexit and the pandemic certainly affected the business. But the truth is that for many years the salaries in the hotel and restaurant sector have not been the best,” Matt Shiells-Jones, a hotel manager, told the BBC. in Manchester.
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“Workers who left the industry during covid-19 have realized that ‘the grass is a little greener on the other side’ after find better paying jobs with fewer hours in other jobs“he added.
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The government’s response
The most urgent measures have been taken especially with regard to transport, to avoid shortages.
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The British government announced an easing of driving hours rules, meaning drivers will be able to increase their daily driving limit from nine hours to 11 hours twice a week.
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Image source, Getty Images
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For several experts in the food and hospitality sector, the pandemic exposed the labor fragility of many of their employees.
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“This will allow drivers of heavy vehicles to take slightly longer trips,” said a government spokesman, “but it should only be used when necessary and should not compromise the safety of the driver.”
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The temporary extension of driving hours will be until October 3.
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Regarding sectors such as meat and poultry, the local government also announced that measures will be taken to expand a cooking training program in the country’s prisons.
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This program wills allows inmates to train in professionally managed prison kitchens for up to 35 hours a week as they work to obtain professional qualifications to help them find employment abroad.
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A spokesman for the Justice Ministry said it would support “all industries with a shortage of qualified personnel where possible.”
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“Helping prisoners find work during their sentence and after release makes it much less likely that they will reoffend.”
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