His chief executive officer Wincanton Zeng said that the challenge of dealing with the “perfect storm” behind the shortage of truck drivers still exists, but logistics giants can deal with it.
James Wroath told The Evening Standard that cross-industry driver recruitment has been affected by “Brexit, COVID-19, and surge in demand”, coupled with the fact that “the workforce is aging.”
Transport and storehouse The company he leads directly employs about 5,000 drivers and has increased wages this year.
Wroath said the pressure continues, but Wincanton “has enough resources to get the job [work for its customers] complete”.
The company worked with chains such as Primark and Waitrose to increase pre-tax profits by 31% to £25.1 million in the six months ended September.
A year ago, it did face more disruption costs when the pandemic began. But this year’s profits also benefited from the acquisition of new contracts and more cooperation with existing retail customers, many of which surged in online orders during the lockdown.
Revenue jumped from 578.7 million pounds to 690.3 million pounds and declared a dividend of 4 pence per share.
The stock price rose slightly by 3 pence to 384 pence.
A report by the housing broker Numis stated: “Strong deals, contract wins and extensions have given people confidence in FY expectations and have demonstrated the importance of its services to provide support to a wide range of customers.”
