A NATIONAL supermarket with a depot in South Marston has increased the salaries of its lorry drivers to combat a driver shortage which has left many shops' shelves empty.

Aldi hopes that improving the wages given to HGV drivers will encourage more people to apply for the many available jobs in the sector and make existing employees have second thoughts about quitting.

This move follows Tesco offering a £1,000 joining bonus fee to lorry drivers amid staffing pressures on UK supermarkets.

The payment, which applies to new starters who join from July 14 until September 30, appears on various advertisements for HGV driver roles on the food retailer’s website.

Now, according to reports in The Sunday Times, the German supermarket has increased its lorry driver wages to meet hte demand which is outweighing the amount of staff available to keep shops fully-stocked.

The generous offer from two of the UK’s ‘big six’ supermarkets comes after the retailers had to reassure customers that there was no need to panic-buy following pictures of half-empty shelves and reports of temporary shortages.

They blamed a perfect storm of different factors for the gap in the workforce, including self-isolating employees and previous staff shortages.

Industry bosses warned that retailers are under increasing pressure to keep shelves fully stocked amid staff shortages.

The British Retail Consortium said that staff shortages, caused by large numbers of workers self-isolating after being pinged by the NHS Covid-19 app, was “putting increasing pressure on retailers’ ability to maintain opening hours and keep shelves stocked”.

The government then introduced emergency measures which it says will protect food supplies, allowing thousands of workers to avoid the need to self-isolate if identified as a contact of a Covid case.

The Road Haulage Association said it believes there is a shortfall of about 60,000 haulage drivers in the UK after around 30,000 HGV driving tests did not take place last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Hauliers blamed the shortage on a large proportion of drivers being foreign nationals from European countries who had returned to the EU, plus truck drivers not being included on the government’s list of skilled labour, leaving new arrivals needing immigration paperwork.

Tesco and Aldi previously assured shoppers it had plenty of food and all grocers urged customers to shop as normal.