‘The government has assumed restricting migrant workers will lead to higher wages and productivity but that doesn’t happen automatically.’
Central to Labour’s ambitious growth plan are major infrastructure projects and the construction of 1.5 million new homes. But the feasibility of these plans is now under question.
‘Labour’s plan for 1.5m new homes under threat from skills shortage,’ splashed the I newspaper’s front-page story on February 24.
Construction industry insiders have warned that Britain needs an extra 25,000 bricklayers, 10,000 carpenters, 4,000 plasterers, plus thousands more skilled tradespeople.
Dropout rates among young construction apprentices are as high as 40 percent on some courses, and government plans to train apprentices have been described as a “drop in the ocean.” Meanwhile, an ageing workforce means more than 20 percent are over 50 and likely to retired before the end of the next decade.
While Labour maintains a tough stance on immigration, with a record number of migrant arrests in January, ministers have acknowledged the need for a significant increase in migrant workers to fill the skills gap in construction. The sector has already experienced a sharp decline in employment numbers, driven partly by the loss of EU workers following Brexit, but also by the retirement of an ageing workforce that is 85% UK-born.
“Immigrant labour is likely to be critical to any government that is serious about building substantially more homes as well as more and better infrastructure,” said Professor Noble Francis, the Construction Product Association’s economics director.
“Training of UK workers is currently insufficient to meet even building what we were building just a few years ago, never mind what we will need to build in the future,” he added.
To address the labour shortage gap, the Home Builders Federation (NFB) is calling for a three-to-five-year construction visa programme. This would be accompanied by a scheme to train UK workers in the same discipline as foreign workers, ensuring that the UK workforce can eventually meet demand. Given that it takes two to three years for someone to qualify in construction and an additional two years to gain experience, the proposed visa program would provide an immediate solution while building a skilled workforce for the future.
Rico Wojtulewicz, head of policy and market insight at the HBF, explained the importance of attracting more people to the construction industry.
“People often say that we’ve got to get more people interested in construction. And I think that obviously the government’s obsession with university education and moving away from trades has created problems in terms of selling that to parents and schools.”
The labour shortages caused by immigration restrictions are not limited to construction. Sectors such as hospitality and manufacturing are also feeling the strain. Since Brexit, the proportion of hospitality workers from overseas has dropped from 25 percent to 12 percent, leaving little room for further reductions. As a result, pubs and restaurants have had to reduce their operating hours due to a lack of staff.
Ahead of last year’s general election, Kate Nicholls, chief executive of the lobby group UK Hospitality, stressed the importance of investing in skills and helping people into employment, to ensure any long-term reduction in migration rates did not exacerbate skills shortages. She warned:
“We’ve got a really sparse population and it’s super-ageing. The bottom line is that even if you took every single person in Cumbria seeking work, you would not fill that gap.”
In manufacturing, employers are likely to turn to automation if they cannot employ migrant labour, warns David Bailey, professor of business economics at Birmingham Business School.
“The government has assumed restricting migrant workers will lead to higher wages and productivity but that doesn’t happen automatically.
“Even greater restrictions [on top of Brexit] would make recruiting workers more difficult and might constrain companies’ ability to increase output.
“It also means that companies would have to look at more automation. If you can’t get workers, you have to automate.”
Left Foot Forward doesn’t have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.
