I’m reading an ironic headline this morning in the Irish Times, which comes a few weeks of hearing the same stories coming from the UK:
“Lorry driver shortage ‘an imminent national emergency’ in Ireland“
Yep…it’s another one of those jobs that we look down our noses at when we talk about careers as we push our young population towards “good” jobs in STEM and in the professions.
“My daughter is studying to be a….“
“You must be so proud ….“
We’ve all heard it!
And now we realise that we don’t have builders to build the houses we need, we don’t have painters, carpenters, electricians, we don’t have chefs to cook the food we enjoy in our restaurants and hotels, we don’t have bar staff to serve us drinks and now we clearly don’t have lorry drivers to move all sorts from A to B and in the same breath some break into a cold sweat about the amount of immigrants entering the country and people stuck in direct provision limbo.
If Covid has and continues to teach us anything, it is that many of those jobs that we don’t really value and the ones that we most rely on.
Let’s lose the job snobbery and encourage people to chose careers that suit them and show them the respect they deserve – we need you..
Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
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