‘Brexit mustn’t shut door on unskilled EU workers’

Bloomberg ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Christmas shopping may get more hectic and crops might go unharvested unless the UK government ensures access to unskilled migrant labour after the UK leaves the European Union, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) warned.
The government must make it easy for workers from the EU currently living in the UK to secure settled status and establish an immigration system that allows retailers to retain access to unskilled workers, the lobby group said. Failure to do so could lead to less choice and higher prices in shops, according to the BRC.
EU nationals make up two-thirds of the permanent workforce in the UK’s food and drink supply chains, according to the BRC. Tesco Plc Chief Executive Officer Dave Lewis said last week that agricultural labor shortages are among the biggest Brexit-related risks facing the UK’s largest retailer. The fall in the pound and concerns that they will not be welcome have made it less appealing for seasonal EU workers to head to Britain, he said.
“There is some genuine concern that farmers don’t have the labor they need to pick the crops,” Lewis said. In formulating a new immigration system the UK government needs to attempt to respect the outcome of the Brexit vote while limiting the short-term impacts on economic growth. A leaked immigration paper from PM Theresa May’s government last month outlined its intention to limit the residency of low-skilled migrants from the EU to two years, immediately after Brexit.
Retailers, as well as companies in the hospitality, manufacturing and construction sectors, would be hurt by an immigration system that discriminated against lower-skilled workers. In addition to the 170,000 EU nationals directly employed in the industry, which is 6 percent of the total workforce, retailers lean heavily on temporary migrant labour to meet demand over the Christmas period or during peak growing seasons.
Some 83 percent of UK retailers employ unskilled EU nationals and 22 percent of retailers have already had EU workers leave the country as a result of the uncertainty surrounding their future rights, the BRC said.
“The UK unemployment rate is at a historic low and many of those who are unemployed are long-term unemployed,” said Helen Dickinson, CEO of the BRC.
Seb James, CEO of electronics retailer Dixons Carphone Plc, has said plans to curb low-skilled migrants are unworkable due to the labour shortages it would create for businesses and the National Health Service.

Polish workers put down ‘English roots’
Bloomberg

When Agnieszka Jankowiak arrived at her factory job in northeastern England the day after the UK voted to leave the European Union, a local colleague told her to go back to Poland. Supervisors knew she was being harassed, but didn’t do anything, she said. So when she was verbally abused for speaking Polish at work three months later, she collected her stuff from her locker and quit.
Jankowiak, 39, now makes pipes in the airplane hangar-sized factory of Ebac Ltd., a washing-machine, dehumidifier and water-cooler manufacturer near Newton Aycliffe. A welcoming environment, a mortgage and the desire to put her 6-year-old daughter through school in England means she has no plans on leaving any time soon.
This though just about everyone at Ebac, from the fervent 73-year-old founder to the 25-year-old technical director, is in favour of Brexit. “After Brexit I felt really awful,” said Jankowiak, before putting on her white gloves, lab coat and hairnet, and returning to the room where the pipes are produced in sterile conditions. “Now it has calmed down. I feel really good, the people here are friendly.”
If the June 2016 vote to split from the EU had a target, it was eastern European workers such as Jankowiak and compatriot and colleague Aleksandra Ludera, 33. Brexit campaigners’ views that immigrants—including more than 900,000 Poles—take British jobs and overload schools and hospitals were a common refrain in this corner of the northeast, which voted overwhelmingly
for Brexit.