Posted in: Sector Skills Agreement
The UK food and drink industry has benefited over the past five years from a substantial influx of migrant workers. At the peak period of this influx, over 72,000 migrant workers were employed in jobs across the industry, 1:10 of the workforce.
The jobs migrant workers undertook ranged from picking and packing fresh produce to working on convenience food production lines, to skilled jobs in meat processing. The majority of these new workers were from the new EU accession countries, in particular Poland. Universally their contribution to meeting labour shortages and delivering productivity has been recognised by employers.
However, many migrant workers are now returning to their home country or moving to other economic opportunities elsewhere in the EU. The research recently published by Improve and from which these key findings are taken, highlights the level of dependence on this pool of motivated workers. Companies are now looking to not only replace, but also identify ways of retaining these workers. For example, the study found that 85.1 per cent of employers who employ migrant workers now do so using long-term permanent contracts.
Migrant workers have met real labour shortages and this has minimised the effects of the unattractiveness of the industry to local populations. For some employers, it has given access to skilled workers who were in virtual permanent shortage. For a larger number, it resulted in workers who were overskilled for the job being employed.
Workers from Romania and Bulgaria are now emigrating in larger numbers than Polish workers. As well as this, workers from EU hopefuls and candidate countries, such as the Ukraine, may soon be emigrating. But for both of these groups the new UK Immigration points system for economic migrants works against our industry. This is because most of the jobs available are low skilled to semi skilled. These roles attract the fewest number of points for entry to the UK and this also goes against the quotas set for migrants from Romania and Bulgaria.
This is a pressing issue for key areas of our industry and is part of the reason why Improve is calling for a full and wide ranging debate between the industry and government. An example is the situation in the Northern Ireland meat processing industry, where there is a growing shortage of skilled cutters resulting from the Polish and Slovakian workers leaving and where the only realistic opportunity to recruit replacements in the short term is workers from Romania, Bulgaria or the Ukraine.
Additionally, the lure of Germany, France, Italy and Spain to migrant workers appears to be greater than that of the UK. So we are faced with attracting people to the UK and then helping them to gain entry.
It is a fact that currently there is a need for labour in less skilled areas, however this is changing with the introduction of new technology and there is therefore the need for motivated and knowledgeable workers. Employers realise that whether their workforce is predominantly temporary or permanent the benefits of having trained and motivated employees far outweighs any benefits gained from not making such an investment.
This brings me to the second issue, if we have a labour shortage why are we not able to recruit from existing local populations? This raises issues around the attractiveness of our industry and the fact that we need 118,000 new and replacement employees between now and 2017, with most of the workers requiring much higher skills.
Whilst our schools, colleges and universities can met some of this requirement, and this is why Improve is leading on the development of the Diploma in Manufacturing and Product Design, they cannot meet all of our needs simply because of the number of workers required.
Improve’s response is to look at the skills of our existing workforce, 80% of today’s workers will be in employment in ten years time in 2017/18, and we will need to invest in skills and competencies at all levels to meet the need for productivity and technology driven performance.
The recent influx of migrant workers has brought real benefits to the UK food and drink industry, enriching our companies, our economy and culture. With migrant workers leaving we are now considering how we can address labour shortages in order to not only maintain, but also boost our productivity and further build on our global competitiveness. It is this debate that is being promoted by Improve and I invite employers, skills providers, government and our stakeholders (economic development agencies, trade unions and employer organisations) to join us and address these critical issues for our industry.
Jack Matthews
CEO Improve Ltd
21 August 2008
Author: ImproveSkills
Job Title: ImproveSkills
Posted: 22nd Aug 2008
Keywords: Migrant Workers, Research
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