9 ms·

"We advertised locally for 70 fruit-pickers and we had nine applications. On follow-up, only one was still available... in terms of recruiting locally, we faile

by ndr 5y ago

"We advertised locally for 70 fruit-pickers and we had nine applications. On follow-up, only one was still available... in terms of recruiting locally, we failed completely," says Ali Capper, the owner of Stocks Farm in Suckley and chair of British Apples and Pears. At her orchard, harvest has just started. It must be done quickly and requires many pairs of hands. Ali had to turn to specialist recruitment firms and has brought in seasonal workers from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia. What's a reasonable prediction here? Higher wages and more expensive fruits? A bunch of farms going bust?

kubb 5y ago
Work camps where exploited eastern europeans live in horrible conditions, their rights are violated, they get underpaid and a substantial portion of their wage goes to the agencies acting as middle men.
- plantain 5y ago
  Are you describing the old system or the new system? Because that's what the UK had before, and it's what the Australian system they're trying to emulate produces too.
  - kubb 5y ago
    The old system isn’t that much different from the new system is it? Just the agencies will get paid more for handling the legal side and logistics of importing the workers.
  - swarnie 5y ago
    That's the old system. People would come in, live on site and be feed on site, work hard for 3 months (maybe moving sites as demand came and went) then leave and go back home. The 3 months of hard work and bad conditions was worth it because of the buying power the wages had comparatively back home. UK people simply wont put up with that because they have to use the wages in the UK.
meheleventyone 5y ago
In this case the jobs were always done by foreign seasonal workers. I dunno if Brexit has made them more expensive but I'd imagine they are less easily available.
- tpm 5y ago
  Both more expensive and less available. But the funny thing is in Eastern Europe, where these workers come from and where they presumably are now, there too are record job vacancies and rising wages. So probably something to do with either the pandemic or overheating economy from the cheap money.
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    Much of Eastern Europe is also undergoing demographic collapse, with total fertility rates under 1.50, and unlike Western Europe they're not getting much in the way of immigrants. Even Syrian refugees etc simply pass through.
    - tpm 5y ago
      Sure but that's fun for the future, for the current situation on the labor market that does not matter at all.
    - Leherenn 5y ago
      I was thinking it must be too soon to have a significant effect yet, but apparently I was wrong. According to [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTPLQ647N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTPLQ647N], the working age population in Poland has declined by about 10% in 10 years.
CodeGlitch 5y ago
Lorry drivers getting 40% higher pay: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-58409277 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-... In fact I can see this happening across many industries, and if you are one of those people working minimum wage can only be a good thing? The import of cheap labour does push down the wages of the working class - so the middle/upper classes get to buy cheaper fruit... I believe farmers will have to work with this new "normal", and it'll take a few years for them to figure out how to cope.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Wonder if it will cause high inflation, and if that’ll force up interest rates
  - codegrappler 5y ago
    It certainly feels that way. Businesses can’t find workers, so wages increase, costs are passed on to consumers, prices inflate…
  - pibechorro 5y ago
    It will. And they will avoid at all costs to raise it, for higher interest rates will default everyone over leveraged, which is everything and everyone at this point outside of the preppers and Libertarian types which have been yelling about this for a long time now.
- thomasz 5y ago
  It's not like the working class doesn't have to eat. In fact, they will be hit hardest by increasing food prices. > Indication of some degree of food insecurity was reported by 14.2% of the sample and tended to be higher amongst younger age groups, those on lower incomes, and home renters (as opposed to owners). https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdab120/6232493 https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1... I somewhat doubt that we're talking about upper/middle classes here.
heurisko 5y ago
I don't know why they are surprised to receive not many applicants locally, as you can't support yourself in the UK on seasonal work. The growing prosperity of other countries, may also mean you can't rely on the difference in purchasing power to attract seasonal workers from other countries. Which leaves either investing in machinery, or perhaps marketing your job as an "experience" to those who aren't relying on the wage, but wouldn't mind some exercise outdoors.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Or paying more
  - heurisko 5y ago
    This doesn't get around the problem, however, unless they pay seasonal workers their expenses for a year.
tomp 5y ago
I love how all the elite arguments that immigration doesn't reduce wages (which the working class always thought were complete bullshit) were proved to be complete bullshit during the pandemic-related border closures. Of course, the discussion about what to do about that remains - open borders & keep wages low, or close borders & raise local wages, or close borders & keep wages low & invest in automation - but it's nice to have the discussion honestly, without gaslighting the opposition.
- zpeti 5y ago
  Pretty big red flag was why so many multinational corporations are pro open borders. Corporations rarely take a stance on political issues unless they have a reason to do so.
  - adventured 5y ago
    In the US there is a particularly pro big business conservative wing of the right that is hyper in favor of unlimited low skill immigration. It's totally at odds with the mainstream conservative position on immigration. So why do they hold that position? It's not out of the kindness of their gentle pro-immigration conservative hearts of course. It's because they want the cheap labor to feed to big business and it helps to suppress wages for all the rest of their workers. If you go back just 15-20 years ago, the Democrats universally understood this fact of labor supply/demand. Large amounts of low skill labor hurt their middle class and lower class labor voters, hurt their wages. And the Democrats used to be against such vast low skill immigration, because they had a large labor vote to protect. You can see this in action by looking at speeches from decades past (including by still prominent Democrats like Bernie Sanders). Their position now? Crickets. They've gone radio silent on the matter vs a few decades ago. That specific labor vote is no longer what they view to be the future, how they are plotting political dominance for the next 50 years.
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      The more you think about it the worse it gets. It's one thing to be in favor of immigration, it's another thing entirely to be in favor of illegal immigration. The Tyson Chickens of the world love illegal immigrants, they don't file workers comp claims or take you to court if you fail to pay them. Supporting illegal immigration is supporting the creation of a untouchable quasi-slave caste. If immigrants had the same rights, privileges and responsibilities of domestic workers, they probably wouldn't work for such a steep discount. This is why I believe many proported immigration proponents don't ever seem to manage to meaningfully open up the border, that isn't what they are going for.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Dig up the fruit trees and sell the land for housing?
- GordonS 5y ago
  They'd never get planning permission, because "but the green belt!". It really boggles the mind how for decades we haven't allowed enough new housing to be built.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    It's happening around me (Oxfordshire), there is a lot of new housing and it's mostly on farmland.
rm445 5y ago
Seasonal agricultural labour has been a problem in the UK for literally centuries, since the move away from subsistence farming and the beginning of the industrial revolution. Traditional solutions, as well as migrant labour, include benefits such as subsidised housing and a minimal off-season social safety net. Which I guess are a form of higher wages, but more directly applied. I suspect that the mix of crops could change in the medium term, to less labour-intensive and more automation-friendly ones. Expect lurid headlines and more expensive strawberry jam. It will be interesting to see whether the government caves to ag-industry pressure and puts in place special summer visa schemes or similar. On the one hand, the current government is fairly right-wing. On the other; they are quite interventionist, aligned with business interests, and dependent on rural votes. And most of all, media-led. I'd guess they'll respond to headlines about fruit rotting on trees with some madcap scheme.
GordonS 5y ago
I noticed the article never mentioned anything about pay and conditions for the advertised fruit picking jobs. My prediction is that the government will make it easier for people to come to Britain for seasonal work. And then they'll make it easier for companies that claim they have "labour shortages", regardless of whether those companies actually tried meaningfully improving pay and conditions first.
magnetowasright 5y ago
Here’s an article about a farmer in Australia who had a mostly local fruit picking workforce for the first time because there’s no backpackers to exploit because of COVID. Shockingly, he attracted workers by paying decent wages, providing good conditions, and reduced costs by not using third party labour recruitment/management services. It’s amazing to me that ‘good wages and conditions attracts workers’ is newsworthy, but it does seem to be something many workplaces are struggling with. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-31/farmers-paying-higher-wages-attract-a-local-workforce/13103366 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-31/farmers-paying-higher...
kbob 5y ago
> "We advertised locally for 70 fruit-pickers and we had nine applications. On follow-up, only one was still available... in terms of recruiting locally, we failed completely," says Ali Capper, the owner of Stocks Farm in Suckley That's not what her web site says. https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ > There are currently NO vacancies at Stocks Farm. > Thank you to everyone who has applied for roles. Due to an amazing amount of applicants, we have been flooded with enquiries. We have closed the April jobs and will reopen for August some time in the summer.
- ndr 5y ago
  That website might be stale, it's been saying the same for over a year: https://web.archive.org/web/20200912125155/https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200912125155/https://stocksfar...

by ndr 5y ago

kubb 5y ago

Work camps where exploited eastern europeans live in horrible conditions, their rights are violated, they get underpaid and a substantial portion of their wage goes to the agencies acting as middle men.

plantain 5y ago
Are you describing the old system or the new system? Because that's what the UK had before, and it's what the Australian system they're trying to emulate produces too.
- kubb 5y ago
  The old system isn’t that much different from the new system is it? Just the agencies will get paid more for handling the legal side and logistics of importing the workers.
- swarnie 5y ago
  That's the old system. People would come in, live on site and be feed on site, work hard for 3 months (maybe moving sites as demand came and went) then leave and go back home. The 3 months of hard work and bad conditions was worth it because of the buying power the wages had comparatively back home. UK people simply wont put up with that because they have to use the wages in the UK.

meheleventyone 5y ago

In this case the jobs were always done by foreign seasonal workers. I dunno if Brexit has made them more expensive but I'd imagine they are less easily available.

tpm 5y ago
Both more expensive and less available. But the funny thing is in Eastern Europe, where these workers come from and where they presumably are now, there too are record job vacancies and rising wages. So probably something to do with either the pandemic or overheating economy from the cheap money.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  Much of Eastern Europe is also undergoing demographic collapse, with total fertility rates under 1.50, and unlike Western Europe they're not getting much in the way of immigrants. Even Syrian refugees etc simply pass through.
  - tpm 5y ago
    Sure but that's fun for the future, for the current situation on the labor market that does not matter at all.
  - Leherenn 5y ago
    I was thinking it must be too soon to have a significant effect yet, but apparently I was wrong. According to [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTPLQ647N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTPLQ647N], the working age population in Poland has declined by about 10% in 10 years.

CodeGlitch 5y ago

Lorry drivers getting 40% higher pay: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-58409277 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-... In fact I can see this happening across many industries, and if you are one of those people working minimum wage can only be a good thing? The import of cheap labour does push down the wages of the working class - so the middle/upper classes get to buy cheaper fruit... I believe farmers will have to work with this new "normal", and it'll take a few years for them to figure out how to cope.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
quickthrower2 5y ago
Wonder if it will cause high inflation, and if that’ll force up interest rates
- codegrappler 5y ago
  It certainly feels that way. Businesses can’t find workers, so wages increase, costs are passed on to consumers, prices inflate…
- pibechorro 5y ago
  It will. And they will avoid at all costs to raise it, for higher interest rates will default everyone over leveraged, which is everything and everyone at this point outside of the preppers and Libertarian types which have been yelling about this for a long time now.
thomasz 5y ago
It's not like the working class doesn't have to eat. In fact, they will be hit hardest by increasing food prices. > Indication of some degree of food insecurity was reported by 14.2% of the sample and tended to be higher amongst younger age groups, those on lower incomes, and home renters (as opposed to owners). https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdab120/6232493 https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1... I somewhat doubt that we're talking about upper/middle classes here.

heurisko 5y ago

I don't know why they are surprised to receive not many applicants locally, as you can't support yourself in the UK on seasonal work. The growing prosperity of other countries, may also mean you can't rely on the difference in purchasing power to attract seasonal workers from other countries. Which leaves either investing in machinery, or perhaps marketing your job as an "experience" to those who aren't relying on the wage, but wouldn't mind some exercise outdoors.

nicoburns 5y ago
Or paying more
- heurisko 5y ago
  This doesn't get around the problem, however, unless they pay seasonal workers their expenses for a year.

tomp 5y ago

I love how all the elite arguments that immigration doesn't reduce wages (which the working class always thought were complete bullshit) were proved to be complete bullshit during the pandemic-related border closures. Of course, the discussion about what to do about that remains - open borders & keep wages low, or close borders & raise local wages, or close borders & keep wages low & invest in automation - but it's nice to have the discussion honestly, without gaslighting the opposition.

zpeti 5y ago
Pretty big red flag was why so many multinational corporations are pro open borders. Corporations rarely take a stance on political issues unless they have a reason to do so.
- adventured 5y ago
  In the US there is a particularly pro big business conservative wing of the right that is hyper in favor of unlimited low skill immigration. It's totally at odds with the mainstream conservative position on immigration. So why do they hold that position? It's not out of the kindness of their gentle pro-immigration conservative hearts of course. It's because they want the cheap labor to feed to big business and it helps to suppress wages for all the rest of their workers. If you go back just 15-20 years ago, the Democrats universally understood this fact of labor supply/demand. Large amounts of low skill labor hurt their middle class and lower class labor voters, hurt their wages. And the Democrats used to be against such vast low skill immigration, because they had a large labor vote to protect. You can see this in action by looking at speeches from decades past (including by still prominent Democrats like Bernie Sanders). Their position now? Crickets. They've gone radio silent on the matter vs a few decades ago. That specific labor vote is no longer what they view to be the future, how they are plotting political dominance for the next 50 years.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    The more you think about it the worse it gets. It's one thing to be in favor of immigration, it's another thing entirely to be in favor of illegal immigration. The Tyson Chickens of the world love illegal immigrants, they don't file workers comp claims or take you to court if you fail to pay them. Supporting illegal immigration is supporting the creation of a untouchable quasi-slave caste. If immigrants had the same rights, privileges and responsibilities of domestic workers, they probably wouldn't work for such a steep discount. This is why I believe many proported immigration proponents don't ever seem to manage to meaningfully open up the border, that isn't what they are going for.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

Dig up the fruit trees and sell the land for housing?

GordonS 5y ago
They'd never get planning permission, because "but the green belt!". It really boggles the mind how for decades we haven't allowed enough new housing to be built.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  It's happening around me (Oxfordshire), there is a lot of new housing and it's mostly on farmland.

rm445 5y ago

Seasonal agricultural labour has been a problem in the UK for literally centuries, since the move away from subsistence farming and the beginning of the industrial revolution. Traditional solutions, as well as migrant labour, include benefits such as subsidised housing and a minimal off-season social safety net. Which I guess are a form of higher wages, but more directly applied. I suspect that the mix of crops could change in the medium term, to less labour-intensive and more automation-friendly ones. Expect lurid headlines and more expensive strawberry jam. It will be interesting to see whether the government caves to ag-industry pressure and puts in place special summer visa schemes or similar. On the one hand, the current government is fairly right-wing. On the other; they are quite interventionist, aligned with business interests, and dependent on rural votes. And most of all, media-led. I'd guess they'll respond to headlines about fruit rotting on trees with some madcap scheme.

GordonS 5y ago

I noticed the article never mentioned anything about pay and conditions for the advertised fruit picking jobs. My prediction is that the government will make it easier for people to come to Britain for seasonal work. And then they'll make it easier for companies that claim they have "labour shortages", regardless of whether those companies actually tried meaningfully improving pay and conditions first.

magnetowasright 5y ago

Here’s an article about a farmer in Australia who had a mostly local fruit picking workforce for the first time because there’s no backpackers to exploit because of COVID. Shockingly, he attracted workers by paying decent wages, providing good conditions, and reduced costs by not using third party labour recruitment/management services. It’s amazing to me that ‘good wages and conditions attracts workers’ is newsworthy, but it does seem to be something many workplaces are struggling with. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-31/farmers-paying-higher-wages-attract-a-local-workforce/13103366 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-31/farmers-paying-higher...

kbob 5y ago

> "We advertised locally for 70 fruit-pickers and we had nine applications. On follow-up, only one was still available... in terms of recruiting locally, we failed completely," says Ali Capper, the owner of Stocks Farm in Suckley That's not what her web site says. https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ > There are currently NO vacancies at Stocks Farm. > Thank you to everyone who has applied for roles. Due to an amazing amount of applicants, we have been flooded with enquiries. We have closed the April jobs and will reopen for August some time in the summer.

ndr 5y ago
That website might be stale, it's been saying the same for over a year: https://web.archive.org/web/20200912125155/https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200912125155/https://stocksfar...