Shropshire businesses face recruitment problems after immigration drop
A sudden drop in immigration from eastern European countries since the EU referendum is causing recruitment problems for businesses, a Shropshire-based legal specialist has said.
The number of people arriving in Britain from eastern Europe dropped to a record low in 2016, causing major problems for the agricultural, manufacturing, catering and hospitality industries.
Jennifer Gibson, of Lanyon Bowdler’s employment law team, said the firm had seen a growing number of companies having to make changes as their pool of labour has reduced.
She said: “As well as general concerns about the economy, the main source of uncertainty in the past year is how Brexit will affect the supply of labour from European Union countries.
“Official figures show that net immigration from the eight eastern European countries that joined the European Union after 2004 was just 5,000 in 2016, which was a record low.
“This is causing recruitment difficulties in certain sectors, such as agriculture, manufacturing, hotels and catering, which need to take steps to adapt, such as attracting more domestic labour and trying to improve levels of productivity.
“The situation is applying upward pressure to levels of pay.”
Ms Gibson said despite the uncertainty which had prevailed since the referendum in June last year, employment law was likely to stay largely the same when the UK left the EU.
She said: “The main thing all businesses crave is stability, and that has been in short supply ever since the UK voted to leave the EU.
“But in actual fact, the UK’s employment law is unlikely to change significantly even when the Brexit negotiations eventually conclude.
“The Government has already said that all EU laws will be converted to UK law at the point we leave the EU, to avoid any sudden changes overnight.
“On top of that, most of the EU employment laws are based on pre-existing UK laws, or indeed our laws have gone above and beyond the EU, such as paid holiday entitlement being 5.6 weeks in the UK and only four in the EU.
“The main worry has been to do with the supply of labour, and as the figures show, that is a legitimate concern at the moment.”
