The fresh produce industry this week faced up to repeated warnings that falling migrant worker numbers could seriously threaten its stability.
The soft- and top-fruit sectors, as well as vegetable producers, have all voiced concerns of impending labour shortages during the last six months, and packers and processors are also seeing the route to migrant labour cut off as the UK becomes a less attractive destination for foreign workers seeking to earn wages that compare favourably with those on offer in their own countries.
Improved money now on offer in producing countries in the eurozone, such as the Netherlands, Belgium and France, is inevitably dragging much-needed labour resources away from these shores.
A new study published by Improve, the food and drink sector skills council, will do nothing to ease fears. The report found that two-thirds (66.7 per cent) of fruit and vegetable processing companies surveyed now employ migrant workers, with an estimated 4,900 foreign nationals working in the sector. But after a period of rapid increase sparked by the admission of several eastern European countries to the EU in 2004, numbers of migrant workers are starting to fall, potentially causing a serious labour shortage, which would undermine productivity in the sector.
Applications from nationals of the EU accession states to work in the UK food and drink industry fell by four per cent between 2006 and 2007, partly because the growing economies of countries such as Poland were making working in the UK less attractive. That drop-off in numbers is likely to have accelerated this year, as the economic situation in the UK worsens.
Improve chief executive Jack Matthews said: “These findings will be a great concern for many people in the fruit and vegetable industry, which has grown to be more and more reliant on migrant labour.
“…companies turn to migrant labour because they cannot find staff in the numbers they need at home,” he said, adding that while less than two per cent of employees turn to foreign workers because they are cheaper, the industry is guilty of under-utilising the skills set it is being provided with.
“Two-thirds of [foreign workers] end up working in elementary roles despite being well qualified, suggesting that, if anything, the industry isn’t making the most of their talents,” Matthews said.
More than two-thirds (68.2 per cent) of fruit and vegetable processors who employ foreign workers say migrant labour has a positive impact on their business, according to the report. Around half of all food and drink firms surveyed believe that falling numbers would lead to job vacancies, with a third saying that would have a negative impact on productivity.
“What the industry needs to do now is look seriously at how it uses migrant labour,” said Matthews. “This is a good time to look at whether we are over-reliant on the influx on workers from abroad, which is always given to fluctuations, and consider what we can do to boost the domestic labour market.”
The National Farmers’ Union believes a shortage of foreign labour led to £20 million-worth of fruit and vegetables not being harvested in 2007. Already this year, berry and apple growers have experienced problems at key picking times.
Matthews urged the industry to make its voice heard in government, and ensure that migration policies recognise the role foreign workers play. “Rules such as those restricting which sectors non-EU, Bulgarian and Romanian nationals [can] work in and the restrictions on the length of visas, do not help the food and drink industry,” he said. “It is in everybody’s interests to lobby harder for a fairer, more open labour market.”
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