Lockdown lifted ...

[DGRossetti]

if you are flying in from Romania to work all around the UK, that is ...

metro.co.uk
Fruit-pickers flown in from Romania after Brits failed to answer call for help
Jen MillsWednesday 15 Apr 2020 12:04 pm
3-4 minutes

Around 180 farm workers are flying in from Romania

A charter flight of around 180 Romanian workers is set to land at Stansted Airport tomorrow to fill vacancies at UK farms amid the coronavirus crisis.

The plane is the first of up to six to arrive in the coming months so that farms stay staffed with labourers.

Country Land & Business Association has warned that farms could be short staffed due to coronavirus travel restrictions.

There have been calls for Brits to step up and fill the gaps – but although many people made unemployed during the lockdown have come forward, it is not enough to fill all vacancies, according to the Times.

Farmers need around 70,000 seasonal workers to make sure crops are picked throughout the year, most of whom usually arrive from the EU.

While a major hiring drive to ‘Feed the Nation’ during the coronavirus crisis has had more than 27,000 applicants, only around 4,300 of them have taken up the offer of an interview so far.

After passengers leave the flight from Bucharest to London they will be bussed to workplaces round the South East and Linconlnshire.

The paper said that the flight has been chartered by an unnamed food produce company.

Passengers will be expected to observe social distancing rules and will not be allowed to leave Romania if they show symptoms of coronavirus.

It comes after many airlines, such as EasyJet and Ryanair, have suspended services between the UK and eastern Europe making it difficult for seasonal workers to get here.

It comes as a 35% fall in UK GDP has been predicted in the second quarter of this year by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR).

Experts at the independent group predict this will happen if lockdown remains in place for a period of three months, followed by three months of partially lifted restrictions.

However, they estimate that the economy will ‘quickly bounce back’.

It is also predicted that the UK will see a rise in unemployment to 10% of the working population, which is around 2,000,000 people.

This will then likely ease off later in the year, the OBR states.

The Department of Work and Pensions has reported that 950,000 new claims for universal credit were made between 16 and 31 March, suggesting that a sharp rise in unemployment is already taking place.

What call?

This one as posted upthread. www.concordiavolunteers.org.uk/feed-the-nation

I wonder what will happen next year? No way are the Romanians getting in under Patel's new points system.

If so many of our citizens have applied then surely they should get the jobs?

It's already been made clear that the article says although many people made unemployed have come forward, it is not enough to fill all the vacancies.

Farmers need around 70,000 seasonal workers to mak

I think that it's great.

I would imagine that Romanians arriving this week were probably recruited quite a few weeks ago before this all started. As there's nothing legally preventing them from traveling to a job (and they're EU citizens with the same rights to work here as UK nationals) then it would have been illegal to take the job offers away from them.

For farm work that starts later in the summer, they seem to be recruiting mainly UK people - thousands appear to have applied. DSD has been trying to get a job, but not managed to do far.

I've no idea where that last incomplete line in my post came from!

I live in a rural area and a large farming area, seasonal migrant workers are the norm here. Farmers use 1000’s of migrant workers every growing season. Every season, the growers will advertise on the local Facebook pages and every season the majority of workers will be made up of migrant workers. The largest grower near us most recently advertised their temporary roles yesterday. However, if the British public aren’t applying or going to interviews, then yes, you need to go back to getting the migrant workforce in place. Fruit, veg and salad picking is very time sensitive. Farmers can’t wait for the public to get bored of being unemployed/on furlough. Those crops need picking soon. It’s also long, hard, back breaking work. That’s probably part of the reason the locals round here aren’t applying.

Yes, the migrant workforce is more capable than the British public. It is not as simple as to say offer training, crops need to be picked at the optimum time to ensure longest life expectancy on the shelf and they also need to meet strict supermarket guidelines. If the crop doesn’t meet the supermarkets criteria then the crop is lost and the farmer doesn’t get paid. That’s £100’s of thousands lost. The reason the migrant workforce is so good is because that’s what they do. They will come to the UK and harvest a crop, then move onto Spain to harvest a crop there, then move onto Italy for the harvest there. They pick for most of the year, not just pick it up as a summer job. The whole workforce doesn’t need to be trained. Any British people that are taking these picking jobs will be taking direction from a migrant worker that has been doing this a long time. You can imagine how well that will go down with some members of the public.

The only time we ever see the migrant workforce in our area (when we aren’t in lockdown) is at the supermarket when they go to do their weekly shop. The rest of the time, they are usually working. Or sleeping. It’s long hours. As long as you maintain social distancing during your essential food shop, you are no more likely to catch anything from them than you are from the cashier or the guy taking forever to buy bananas.

April is planting season....