Where will ‘low-skilled’ workers come from after Brexit?

Businesses within all sectors of the food and drink industries are concerned about a lack of migrant workers after Brexit, with some even calling for ‘low-skilled’ workers to be added to the shortage occupation list.

Companies within Food and Beverages, the largest employer in the manufacturing sector, responded to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC)’s call for evidence into the impact that Britain leaving the EU will have on the UK labour market.

They state they are facing a skills gap and have an ageing workforce. They predict that by 2024, a third of their employees will retire and they will need 140,000 new recruits just to stay level.

The British Meat Processing Association argued that there is a shortage in butchers and that the definition of ‘low-skilled’ is now out of date. It said: ‘Good knife skills are not an academic subject, but they are nevertheless a skill. We regret that the current Government view seems to be that ‘skilled workers’ mean only those with high level academic qualifications.

‘We would like to see the definition of “skilled” to mean an ability that has to be learnt through study and/or practice, something that someone could not walk in off the street and more or less immediately do to the necessary level.’

The National Pig Association added: ‘A recent Brexit scenario analysis conducted by the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board demonstrated that unless specific policy measures are implemented to address the shortfall in migrant labour, its short supply will add a major cost to farms.

‘If the availability of labour is curtailed, employers will be competing more for staff, thus leading to higher wages, and an increase to the cost of production.

‘This would lead to a rise in the cost of pork, making British pork uncompetitive compared to foreign imports, leading to the inevitable loss of businesses and the requirement to import more pork from the EU.’

EU migrant labour is primarily employed in farm- or factory-based roles, and so access to flexible, often seasonal workers will continue to be critical to growth.  For example, fruit and vegetable pickers during the summer, apple harvesters in autumn, and those involved in the processing of poultry and salmon in the run-up to Christmas.

The supermarket chain Morrisons disclosed that they took on more migrant workers in February to process flowers in time for Valentine’s Day.

Couldn’t this type of work be mechanised instead? Not easily, say the producers. For instance, a robot can take as long as 15 seconds to pick a single strawberry. It’s much quicker and more efficient to employ a human being to do the same task.

The technology hasn’t yet been developed for a machine to distinguish between ripe or unripe fruit, nor to have a delicate enough touch to pick something like a head of lettuce without spoiling it.

A large salad and vegetable manufacturer, G’s, told the MAC, ‘Prices for salad and vegetables had lower rate of inflation than other goods in recent years. Disruption to supply or skill level of seasonal labour will have immediate consequences for the average consumer’s shopping basket.’

The same can be said in the service sector. Food and beverages services employed 2.4% foreign workers in 2004; that figure increased to nearly 25% in 2016.

The British Sandwich Association confirmed that between 70-75% of staff working in their outlets in London were from outside the UK, with most of them coming originally from within the EU. Outside London, this proportion was said to be around 40%.

Once again, automation is not the answer. Sandwich-making, with its combination of dry, moist and irregularly shaped ingredients, isn’t as well-suited to a robot as a human.

The weakening of the pound and the fear of anti-immigrant prejudice means that the UK is becoming less of an attractive prospect to most EU migrant workers.

But if they won’t be around to pick crops, it could mean non-British strawberries at this year’s Wimbledon tennis tournament, and throughout the year it could also become more difficult to grab a takeaway coffee or buy a ready-made sandwich at lunchtime.

That’s food for thought.