29.10.2008
The government has been asked to relax labour market restrictions limiting industry’s access to migrant workers from Romania and Bulgaria in order to help ease “short-term” staff shortages facing the food and drink manufacturing sector.
Giving evidence before the government’s Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), Jack Matthews, chief executive of food and drink sector skills council Improve, said the immigration quota placed on Bulgarian and Romanian workers was “inconsistent when matched against need” and unfairly penalised certain food and drink sectors.
Mr Matthews was giving evidence in the wake of recent research published by Improve which revealed that workers from EU states such as Poland and Slovakia, who are not subject to the same restrictions as those placed on Bulgarian and Romanian nationals, were starting to head home in large numbers.
He said: “Just under one in five workers in the food and drink industry are classified as migrants, with the majority originating from the so-called ‘A8’ group of eastern European countries admitted to the EU in 2004. That is a relatively heavy reliance on migrant labour, but it stems from basic need – food and drink companies simply haven’t been able to source workers in the numbers they need at home for some years now. Even with the current economic downturn and rise in unemployment, it is difficult to recruit local people into certain jobs in the food and drink sector. In the long term, we know that migrant labour is not a sustainable answer and the industry is working hard to plug gaps in the domestic labour market. But that will not happen overnight, and in the meantime, while Polish, Slovakian and Lithuanian workers are heading home, companies are being left short-staffed in key occupations.
“We have asked the government to look again at the rules affecting Bulgarian and Romanian workers because they are still applying to come to this country in large numbers. However, their availability to companies is restricted by what many in the food and drink industry see as arbitrary, unbalanced immigration quotas. Workers from any other EU member state can move freely to the UK to work in whatever business they like, but, as far as the food and drink industry goes, Bulgarian and Romanian workers can only be employed in meat, fish and mushroom processing, and their numbers are tightly controlled. This means other sectors such as fresh produce, chilled and convenience foods are being penalised.
“After 2011, all of these rules will be scrapped anyway,” continues Mr Matthews, “so we are not talking about a huge influx of workers between now and then. All we are asking is that the government be a little more flexible in its approach and allow immigration policies to reflect the immediate and real needs of industry.”
Food and Drink Federation director Angela Coleshill backed the stance taken by Improve. She said: “We support the work that Improve is doing to open the debate, particularly around the review of sub-sectors that are currently able to take (tightly controlled numbers) of Bulgarian and Romanian workers - currently only meat, fish and mushroom processing. We support the call for other sub sectors to be included, such as fresh produce, chilled and convenience foods.
“The rules governing the definition of a ‘skilled’ worker for immigration purposes may also need to be reviewed for the sector; the definition of a skilled worker for the food and drink industry will be different from other manufacturers and should be better aligned to our needs. We also support the work Improve is doing to increase the availability of local labour for the sector, in particular initiatives to get young people interested in joining the food industry and raising its profile as a great place to work.”
The government is obliged to inform the European Commission whether it intends to extend its immigration restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian nations beyond January 2009 in preparation for the scrapping of all migration quotas across the EU in 2011. The MAC has been hearing evidence from representatives of the food processing, agriculture, hospitality, construction and social care sectors in lieu of its decision.
