Taxi Driver Online

This is pure PR recruitment spiel. And not sure what this £5k 'pay' guarantee amounts to. I'm guessing it's £5k in fares rather than 'pay' or salary. And presumably they'd have to work a minimum number of hours and maybe nights, or drivers would have no incentive to log on, so if it is a guarantee then it'll be heavily qualifed

And the 'first month of employment' is presumably actually the 'first month of self-employment', or maybe 'worker' status

Anyways...


London taxi firm to hire 1,000 new drivers with 'guaranteed' first month's pay of £5,000

https://www.mylondon.news/news/business ... 0-21865152

Addison Lee to offer "market-leading" rates to lure in drivers across London

Private taxi giant Addison Lee is to recruit 1,000 drivers in London amid growing demand for its services as the capital recovers from the virus crisis.

The company said it is offering drivers a “market-leading” package, with a guarantee of £5,000 for the first month of employment, a pension and holiday pay.

Between August and September, Addison Lee said its passenger car journeys in London increased by more than 40 per cent, and the company expects to see continued growth throughout the Christmas period.

Chief executive Liam Griffin said: “Throughout the pandemic, we have put drivers first, and as London recovers, we’re delighted to be able to grow the driver community with market-leading rates of pay and benefits.

“It’s encouraging to see London reopening and the city coming back to life. Drivers will have a huge role to play in helping people getting around the city as safely and reliably as possible.

“Our latest recruitment drive is designed to ensure we continue to support existing drivers and meet future demand.”

The news follows Addison Lee’s announcement last month to transition its standard fleet to fully electric by 2023.

But not difficult to spot the words and phrases of the PR spin here, such as 'putting drivers first', 'market-leading' and 'grow the driver community'.

Wonder which rival firm the term 'market-leading' is having a dig at

But 'Addison Lee to recruit 1,000 new drivers in London' is a great headline for them, and acts as both a free recruitment advert, and also looks good for the firm in the sense of marketing it to potential customers.

The likes of the Mail Online, the Evening Standard online, the Independent and Fleet News are all using a very similar headline.

It's also in local publications as varied as the Brighton Argus, the Wirral Globe, the Bicester Advertiser, the Surrey Comet and the South Wales Argus

Addison Lee's press release will be pumped out by the Press Association news agency, and it will then appear on all these local news sites which are under the umberalla of a national publishing group like Newsquest

The Daily Mail has used the 'news' to rehash the whole 'taxi shortage' thing, and has managed to shoehorn in the stuff from Grimsby, Blackpool and Glasgow Taxis. And DJ Rosie Shannon, naturally


Addison Lee reveals plans to recruit 1,000 drivers in London amid 'growing demand' as nation is gripped by cabbie shortage with THREE hour waits for a taxi

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ondon.html

• Addison Lee has reported increases in passenger journeys ahead of Christmas
• The firm is expecting to see trend continue and is recruiting 1,000 new drivers
• Comes after people across UK reported three hour delays for private hire taxis

According to a couple of publications the £5k guarantee depends on doing at least 140 jobs across the first month.

So that's an average of over £35 per job

So either the average job at Addy Lee is huge, or they're being very generous with the £5k guarantee

140 is 4 to 5 jobs a day assuming 30 days so that should be easily doable working 5 or 6 days a week but with London traffic it could take over 2 hours per job unless they are follow ons

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Average speed in London these days is down to 6mph.

Vast majority of their work is account or app work, so it might actually be £5,000.

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IDFIMH

Possibly both.

A £35 job in London isn't uncommon, and many of the firms have a minimum fare.

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IDFIMH

Wouldn't doubt they do plenty £35 jobs, but £35 would have to be the *average* to come to the £5k guarantee over 140 runs.

According the their website, the minimum off-peak fare is £8.45, so I'd guess there's a lot of jobs well under £20. But even if you assume the *average* job is £20, doing the minimum 140 jobs comes to just £2,800, so Addy Lee would have to make up the £2,200 shortfall.

I somehow doubt they'd be doing that, so maybe the average is a lot more than £20, but a £35 average doesn't ring true, even with a £8.45 'flag' and in London, so there may be more to it than drivers just having to do 140 jobs.

But no doubt Addy Lee have done their sums...

Giveth with one hand, taketh away with the other.

If a driver does 100 jobs a week then they would need to average, say, £12 a job to get near that five grand.

So if the minimum off-peak fare is £8.45 then I wouldn't be shocked for the average to be £12 taking into account longer jobs and peak rates.

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IDFIMH

But it's 140 jobs *across the first month*.


The Evening Standard also reported the same figure here:

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/add ... 60634.html

I suppose there's an outside possibility that it could be 140 jobs *per week* over the first month, in which case it wouldn't be much of a guarantee at all, and indeed might be a tall order for the driver to achieve.

So maybe it's just been misreported, but in any case I doubt if it's as generous as it seems, but makes for a good recruiting tool for Addy Lee

I understand that, but I suspect the firm is subsidising it for the first month.

The 2-3 grand subsidy is akin to what most firms pay employment agencies for finding full-time staff, and most of it will be written off via tax.

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IDFIMH

What tax?

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Grandad,