Baffling Brexit rules threaten export chaos
several freight-forwarding&#x2F;logistics companies in my country are pulling their trucks from going to the UK (Schenker is just one of many). It&#x27;s too much hassle for them. My friend works for a mid-size logistic company where their trucks still go to UK but he reckons it&#x27;s a big risk even in the short-term because drivers will not put up with it and leave the company. (note: well paid long distance truckers do not exist anymore)<p>For those who believe the market will fix it: Well paid drivers no longer exist. The last time he has seen a local work as truck driver was in mid-2000 and meanwhile salaries have dropped to ~€700 and less therefore only some Eastern Europeans can justify that working as a driver still makes sense for them. There is not much wiggle room left in terms of just paying better salaries - even smaller freight-forwarders are asking themselves whether it continues to go there (at least for now).<p>He is also not happy about having historically taken care of UK freight business and that he should just roll with it. He says all the customs&#x2F;declaration headache with the UK is now not different than being in charge of shipping to Uzbekistan or Russia, and he can&#x27;t see profits for them in the UK market only risks which especially are a bitter pill for smaller freight-forwarders.<p>What makes it worse is that UK customers have a high level of expectations of services. Their service industry has always been put on a pedestal especially when comparing themselves to France&#x2F;Germany&#x2F;etc, ... people expect cheap, fast and highly tailored to the customer. That was already hard before, and it&#x27;s going to become impossible now to satisfy the expectations. As an example pre-Brexit, he had a truck go there on Monday and it was supposed to return by the next morning with a full load (booked for the way back). Now the same trucks return empty and also are stuck frequently, sometimes a whole week because even locals don&#x27;t understand the paperwork. And truckers had enough of pissing into bottles too. It&#x27;s a huge risk for UK businesses when the costs of the supply chain become hard to predict.<p>But why don&#x27;t they just warehouse more stock? They have like everyone today a JIT supply-chain and there isn&#x27;t any storage to stock up. These warehouses would literally have to be built.