Since the ominous decade of the seventies, which ended up causing the arrival of Margaret Thatcher's neoliberalism, it was not usual that in the United Kingdom, which disputes France for the position of second largest European economy, these types of excuses were sent for breach of contract: “Dear customer, the delivery service to that zip code has been suspended for two days so that our warehouse can alleviate the accumulated delay. The increase in demand and the shortage of drivers have led to this accumulation ”. It was not the first email of this nature received by Daniel Juliá, a Spaniard who has lived in London for decades, who has, together with another partner, a business that distributes hospitality equipment and another that distributes ice. “For the distribution of the ice we need at least 12 conductors.If one fails me, I have a serious problem, because it is very difficult to find a replacement right now, ”he explains.
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Their problem, on a reduced scale, is the same one that currently affects the whole of the United Kingdom, and which has led to the Portuguese chain of Nando's restaurants, which specializes in different dishes with chicken and is very popular among the English. They have to close some of their establishments due to not having enough raw material. Just like McDonald's - where smoothies and other bottled drinks are lacking - or the Weatherspoon pub chain, which has run out of some brands of beer. Or the big Sainsbury's supermarkets, which have struggled these days to overcome the shortage of their usual offers that reflected the empty shelves. Or Coca-Cola, which acknowledged that its bottling plants in England, Scotland and Wales had run out of aluminum cans.
The new Immigration Law, in force since February last year and further restricted European citizens' access to the British labor market, coincided with the onset of a pandemic that forced companies to concentrate all survival efforts. Plans to adjust work needs to the new residence scheme agreed between London and the EU (the so-called
EU Settlement Scheme
),
and thus ensure the permanence of the workers they already had hired, they were frozen.
"Since then, many of our members have described to us a perfect storm that has altered their entire transformation process," says the CBI, the UK's main employers' association.
"In addition to the pandemic interrupting their ability to prepare and adapt to the new immigration system, it also pushed many community workers to leave the country to be closer to their families," he says.
Heavy goods trucks in Cobham, UK rest area, August 31 PETER CZIBORRA / Reuters
And many of those who fled a UK paralyzed for months by the virus - the National Statistical Office put them at more than a million over a year - did so without previously regularizing their situation.
Conclusion: your return has now become a cumbersome procedure for which the company must apply for a visa, demonstrate that its needs are in line with those contemplated by the new Immigration Law, or that the job offer exceeds 30,000 euros per year.
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The CBI estimates that the UK would need at least 100,000 more truckers to alleviate growing shortage problems. And it is not only that the main hole. There is a shortage of workers capable of handling heavy machinery, as well as short-haul transporters. Lack of staff for food processing plants, for caring for livestock or for gathering fruits, vegetables and flowers. There are no shop assistants, warehouse workers, hotel and office cleaners. Not carpenters, not electricians; no mechanical engineers or workers for assembly plants. “We have heard the case of companies that artificially restrict their capacity because they are unable to meet the high demand. It is the case, for example,of the hotels that are limiting the number of rooms they reserve because they do not have enough cleaning staff nor can they have enough laundry service ”, explains the report prepared by the CBI.
The Johnson government is reluctant to admit that its main political achievement, Brexit, may cause irreparable damage, at least in the medium term, to the country's economy. Home Secretary Priti Patel's response, with a harsh speech on immigration, is for employers to strive to train, train and hire British citizens. In the truckers, the exams to obtain the driving license have begun to be expedited, very slowed down during the time of social restrictions due to the pandemic. But the business demand for the temporary return of all Romanian, Polish, Portuguese or Spanish drivers who could alleviate a stressful situation that threatens new scenes of empty shelves during the Christmas period has not been met.
"This is all going to last longer than people think," says Andrew Sentance, a renowned economist who advises analytics firm
Cambridge Econometrics
and a former external consultant to the Bank of England. “The lack of trained workers can go on for years. The impact that Brexit has had on our ability to obtain labor from the EU will remain. And the staff training process has been altered by the pandemic, because people were not working and were under ERTE ”, continues Sentance.
The UK's main economic institutions as well as major political parties (especially Labor, now in opposition) have decided to put the long years of tension around Brexit behind and treat the decision as a fait accompli. This does not mean that, from the subtlety, the negative consequences that the decision to leave the EU entailed are not continued to be pointed out. The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey - who in a report assured that the tension in the supply chain or the rise in prices of some raw materials would decrease over time - could not help but express his concern about the shortage of hand working. "Others will have a different opinion, but I can't help but start to worry about this persistence in the job market",Bailey said Wednesday before the House of Commons Economics Committee.
