Member Article

Warning from food manufacturers

Food and drink manufacturers in the North East have warned that a fall in numbers of migrant workers is threatening the stability of the region’s £1.4 billion industry.

A new study published by Improve, the food and drink sector skills council, reports that 16.7% of food and drink companies in the North East now employ workers from abroad.

But the report also found evidence that, after a period of rapid increase sparked by the admission of several eastern European countries to the EU in 2004, numbers of migrant workers are now falling, causing a headache for the region’s food and drink manufacturers.

Half of all employers surveyed said low numbers of migrant workers would leave them with job vacancies, while just under a third said that it would lead to skills shortages and a drop in productivity. Overall, 66.7% of companies said employing migrant workers had a positive impact on their business.

Jack Matthews, Improve chief executive, said: “These findings will be of great concern to many people in the industry. The issue is that food and drink companies turn to migrant labour because they cannot find staff in the numbers they need at home.

“We have to look at boosting the domestic labour pool and the level of skills in our existing workforce in order to counter any decline in numbers of migrant workers and the potential threat to the industry’s productivity that brings. I sincerely hope that all of the key stakeholders involved will be interested in discussing how we can best achieve this in the near future.”

The study suggested that the main reason for declining numbers of migrant workers was the improving economies of the so-called ‘A8’ group of eastern European countries admitted to the EU in 2004. This is reported to be particularly true of Poland, which accounts for a third of all migrant workers employed in the UK food and drink industry.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .