Driver Recruitment at it’s Lowest: Is the Taxi Game Dead?

Scrolling through Taxi Twitter, there’s plenty of doom and gloom about the state of the industry. Considering the range of issues affecting the economy at the moment, it is understandable. We’ve just come out of a global pandemic, fuel prices and the cost of living are skyrocketing, and, there’s a huge push towards sustainable vehicles.

But is it really as bad as some would have us believe? Is the ‘game’ really dead?

Looking at recruitment figures, things do look that way.

Driver Shortages

Across the country, taxi and private hire fleets are struggling to find enough drivers to service demand. Although large parts of the economy have recovered from the pandemic, the taxi and private hire industry have suffered more than most.

Significant numbers of drivers have found other work as delivery or HGV drivers. In some cases have used the pandemic to retrain entirely. These individuals have little to no desire to come back to the industry.

The Knowledge of London is also showing the lowest level of applicants going through the process to become a London cabby.

People unfamiliar with the industry might think that fewer drivers mean more business for those still working. While that is true in a sense, a lack of drivers also causes problems.

People have an expectation of taxi services to be reliable, cheap and available as and when they’re needed. But with fewer drivers on the road, customers can struggle to catch a cab. If hailing a cab or booking a private hire becomes increasingly difficult, it’s only a matter of time before people start assessing the other options.

Recruitment push

Operators across the UK are investing in their recruitment more than ever to try and ensure they can meet demand. But it’s not just operators. Concerned about the safety of women and girls, some licensing authorities are offering incentives to ensure there are functional taxi services in their area.

. @londontaxi_pr's newest campaign is up on several of our screens, so if you’re in Central London over the next few weeks the chances are you’ll be seeing the campaign first-hand, which highlights the knowledge needed to become a London Taxi Driver.#Digitalbillboard #DOOH #OOH pic.twitter.com/2gCwZM0Kd9

— London Lites (@LondonLitesDOOH) March 28, 2022

London Taxi PR recently launched their largest recruitment campaign to try and encourage people to sign up for The Knowledge.

The campaign covers billboards around the capital with pictures of real drivers and the tagline ‘I did it, so can you’, a reference to the notorious difficulty of The Knowledge.

Speaking to TaxiPoint, Andy Scott, London Taxi PR’s PR and Communications spokesperson, said:

“Given the effect of the pandemic on the profession, the drastic fall in student numbers on The Knowledge, and with many people within the profession expressing their concerns about its future, it was essential that we, (London Taxi PR) did something, both quickly and with maximum impact and coverage.”

Is the game dead? 

In the upcoming episode of our What Time You on ‘Til? podcast, JP and Ryan asked this question to licensed London cabby and Youtuber, Tom Hutley. Better known as Tom the Taxi Driver, he has been a licensed cabby for nearly 5 years and was more than happy to share his opinion on whether the taxi game is actually dead. Read his response below:

“There's a lot of different ways of looking at it, and I would never sort of force it upon anyone and say, “oh yeah, you gotta do it. It's the greatest thing in the world like it will change your life it's the silver bullet and it's amazing.” 

When you're on the knowledge because it's this far-flung goal, you think, well, it's so so hard it must be worth it at the other end and for me, I can say categorically...  

From before, you know, doing my knowledge and also now coming out with a badge. I have a richer quality of life. I have a much better quality of life. I have freedom, you know, we’re able to do fun things like this. 

I earn more money. I've done certain opportunities I definitely would not have been able to do in my circumstances beforehand, 

But that's just me  

Other people that have come from maybe a self-employed background, maybe labouring backgrounds. They might look at the two and go well hold on a minute. 

What I'm trying to get across in the YouTube is some of the realities of the job.  

Llike one of my most recent ones I put up was quite a controversial title and I used the the title that a lot of cabbies have said for years of like ‘oh is the game dead’ 

 And some people kind of misinterpreted it as me saying, like, oh, I want to get out the cab trade  

And no, it's kind of just looking at all the things that are happening in the world right now. The vehicles that we have, to the increased cost of living and stuff and that these might affect how good the job is right now. 

You know it's no surprise that in years gone by that the job might have been better, but I think if you look at every sector of society there, everyone will always say, oh, it was so much better back in the day, always so much better. 

Everything has been carved up and cut up and there is more barriers to entry.  

I think like when I was in retail for instance. 

Uh, you know, my old boss said ‘oh in the 70s. If you had a shop it was like a licence to print money.’ 

You would just put a product on the shelf. People would come in and just take it. It just it wouldn't matter what it was. It would just sail whereas now ... it's all about online but... 

Go down your local High Street or go down you know Regent Street, Oxford St. There's still major retailers there. 

It's still there, but the game is of the game is evolving ever slightly, and I think it's the same with taxis. 

Taxis aren't ever going to be dead. People are always going to get around. It just means that how we operate will change.”

And there you have it! If you want to see the full interview, you’ll be able to catch it next week on our socials and podcast. You can get up to date with the most recent episodes here.