Recruiting low paid staff for Out of Town Warehouses?

[afterparty]

Hi All,

I've always wondered whats the point of having warehouses in rural or area's that are 10 + miles away from big cities/ populations.
Many of these places don't even have proper bus or train systems to get to.

I know many are for ease of motorway access from the warehouses, but is it easy to get staff on minimum wage to work in these locations ?

Do most of the workers own cars and travel such distances to earn £8.72 an hour ?

If any managers or business owners could shed some light.

Thanks

[eltawater]

It can quite often be down to planning. Locals don't tend to like having warehouses popping up right next to their houses.

It's a job, and like many jobs, commuting costs are part and parcel of earning a living. A dayrider bus ticket currently costs £4.50 in my local town, roughly equal to a gallon of petrol at current prices. Drive the right car and you'd easily cover 2 working days of 20 mile round trips.

[Mick87]

Most warehouses will use a recruitment/employment agency for labour and the agency will provide transport for the workers for a fee.

[Simpo Two]

If Amazon get any bigger perhaps they'll start building their own towns for the workers... Bournville, Saltaire etc.

[Freshprince]

The Golden Triangle! Amazon has specific bus routes such as from leamington to Rugby’s Amazon warehouse.

http://www.rcslogistics.co.uk/blog-and-news/golden...

Land value are higher and scarce in and around major cities for large distribution centres and warehouses.

[quinny100]

I have a few customers who run warehouses and it seems that working more than 40 hours a week is pretty much the norm, so even at £8.72 an hour it's easy to make enough to run a car.

[bristolracer]

Sometimes its more attractive to the employee

Generally they will be commuting against the flow of traffic so a 1 hour commute to a city centre job becomes a 15 minute run to an out of town site.
Also its not uncommon for people to buddy up for lifts, if you are all working the same shift, all live on the same estate, why not car share?

[Venisonpie]

I was part of a team that set up and launched a new warehouse in Dunstable back in 2006/7 for a retailer. The decision making process on location depends on many factors one of which is labour availability.

One of the reasons the site was chosen was the local area despite being in striking distance of London had suffered a lot of economic decline with various vehicle manufacturers closing or scaling back. It was deemed there was a good supply of skilled/semi skilled/ non skilled labour available underpinned by the airport and the opening of borders to Eastern European workers - immigrants often don't move that far from where they arrive in the country.

It was proved right and there was no shortage however it quickly become apparent some of the indigenous workers suffered from union mentality and were not that productive, the Eastern Europeans the opposite.

During the evaluation stage one key factor was the provision of a new bus lane from Luton Station that ran past the site that the council planned to build (and did).