You could argue that joining the EU created a lot of new jobs for HGV drivers. The free movement of labour ensured downward pressure on wages, which is good for making UK goods competitive. Obviously not great for drivers in the short term, but good for everybody else that works for those companies in the longer term.

What a lot of companies in the UK will now be doing is moving their production and distribution base into Europe to ease the current problems. That's not good for anybody in the UK. The company I work for saw this coming (increasing red tape, delays, tax implications) and already shifted a lot of fulfilment to mainland Europe, resulting in job losses at our distributors. But in other news, the job market in my profession is buoyant after nothing for 18 months. Really difficult to parse out what is covid downturn, covid bounceback, brexit and wider economic issues in all of this.