Post-Brexit and with the pandemic cloud starting to lift, the scarcity is more apparent
Britain's prime minister Boris Johnson. Picture: REUTERS/DAN KITWOOD
The number of EU construction workers in the UK has halved over the past four years. Contractors who laid off employees at the start of the pandemic are struggling to rehire them. Other industry groups say members are crying out for food processors, workers in retail supply chains and heating engineers, among others. Vacancies for truck drivers have hit 100,000, according to the Road Haulage Association.
At Northern Irish firm OS Doors, which makes doors for kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms across the UK, pay inflation is running as high as 10% for skilled workers who can operate any machine in the factory.CEO John Toomey says his main concern is retaining his cohort of 350 workers, 80% of whom hail from the EU’s eastern states, largely Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.
The UK government is helping fill vacancies though training schemes to help job seekers squire the necessary skills, a spokesperson for the department of work and pensions said. It relaxed rules for some critical workers last month in areas such as energy, health care, medical supplies and food production to ease the short-term squeeze from workers being “pinged” by the country’s app and told to self-isolate.
“Brexit gives us the opportunity to evolve some immigration policy to allow missing skill sets to come into the UK,” he said. “We’re not going to suddenly find 100,000 drivers tomorrow. We’ve got to ease it to allow qualified other nationalities to ease the gap.”The department of transport said it had no plans to introduce a short-term visa for drivers of heavy-goods vehicles, and instead has relaxed rules to allow longer hours and is funding apprenticeships.
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