Fruit pickers/Eastern Europeans/why?

[TheGoodEnoughWife]

Hi, put this here as was said in relation to the leave vote.

A fruit farmer said on the news last night that if he cannot have Eastern Europeans picking his apples then they would remain unpicked and go to waste.

Just wanted to ask why this would be?

Why aren't there people within the UK wiling to pick them? We have high unemployment so surely the potential for pickers are there?

I have considered it is because workers from outside the UK can be paid less but doesn't the farmer have to pay minimum wage? Or is there some way around that (by offering accommodation perhaps?) or maybe people within the UK don't want to pick the fruit and are holding out for a perceived 'better' job?

I know when I was little my mum would go, along with her friends of similar age/life stage, fruit picking for work but that doesn't happen now - why not?

Would be interested to hear other views on why this might be?

I agree, the reasons are complex and need to be discussed without judgement.

I also agree that Eastern Europeans do seem to work really hard. Something people within the UK don't seem to want to do. Again why is that? When did we become afraid of proper physical work? I personally think a younger person doing proper hard physical work can prevent them getting in to all sorts of other 'pursuits' that are best avoided!

Even for myself I know the feeling of hard physical work is actually really good for me mentally.

If you are on benefits and take a seasonal job, how do you cover your outgoings between when you start (and come off benefits, whilst applying for in work benefits) and when you get paid ?

Becuase even back in the 80s (when the system was a lot less complex) there was that bloody time lag that meant actually finding a job, a permenent job, meant a month of cold and hunger as transports costs took priority. Even with the small extra "tide you over slightly" payment they were prepared to pay if you know about it.

The pain of getting over that hump was worth it for a salaried position (albeit low paid) that was intend to be full time and ongoing.

But would it be worth it if you earned very little more than benefits, gained no transferable skills, could add only unskilled seasonable work to your CV AND had the insecurity of an income gap PLUS the nightmare of getting your benefits sorted out again afterwards ?

That wouldn't just be "not worth it". It would be almost masochistic .

What might work is a rather elegant new voucher thingie we have over here. Even if you are on out of work benefits (which are contribution based and time limited, do not go up if your outgoing's go up- so admittedly quite a different system) you can work and earn an additional 4000 euros per year using the voucher system to minimise bureaurocracy.

So employer buys a 10 euro voucher (plus small extra cost for admin fees) and pays a casual worker with that. The worker takes the voucher to the post office or tabacconist's and cashes it for 7:50 The difference is tax which goes to the tax office. (you can also get 20/50 Euro vouchers)

In order to minimise the risk of employers exploiting the system and rendering potential full time/non seasonal work positions into casual work only, while an unemployed worker can earn up 4 grand pa, they can't be paid more than 2 grand ish from a single employer. So if employer wants a full time workforce, he has to give them a contract. Although most new contracts tend to be the new temporary work ones. But still, you get your contributions paid in full.

I hope I explained that OK. It really is simpler than perhaps I've made it sound.

Anyway. With something like the voucher system in place, perhaps people who are out of work wouldn't be so reticent to take on seasonal jobs. Becuase not only would it not cause them economic issues for very little gain, it would provide very concrete extra income.

right now I am going to wake up my 16 year old dd and suggest she goes back to the fruit farm she went to yesterday, and asks them for a job. I shall keep you updated

I do know of a friend of hers who did work there one summer

We don't actually have high unemployment

Depends on the type and season of fruit too. I used to work on a fruit farm picking then running the fruit pickers.

Picking was done by local kids, Poles who lived on the farm, and travellers who stayed on the farm. The Poles were by far the fastest (apart from me). Work started at 4 am so being on site helped and they turned up everyday picking was on without fail. The local kids turned up when they felt like it for a few days at a time. Then if it rained they might not turn up again.

The season ran on after the end of the school holidays.

The unemployed could turn up to pick and its unlikely anyone would know as it is cash in hand piecework. not suggesting they should but not many do.

Some days I'd make about £15 picking other days about £2 and I was pretty quick so it's not exactly well paid. Plus if it is jaggy bushes it takes weeks for your hands to heal.

If you like being outdoors though and have low costs it is actually ok work.

That voucher system sounds really interesting.

There are also places where 1 days wirk corresponds to one day lost benefit. Not endless sugn on sign off and wait. (Although there dud ysed to be a low income sign on in the UK don't know if there still is as I used to work PT casual and just declare every fortnight while building up experience)

Targets would likely mean that the expected pick rate would be much higher than when I was a teenager.

There are a number of ways to get people to take jobs that are unattractive...

1. Increase pay
2. Increase job perks
3. Make hours/working patterns more attractive
4. Increase job security (so employ more farm workers year round and not just seasonally)

etc

If farmers don't want to pay the rate that would get people to do the work, then that's their lookout...if a consumer doesn't want to pay a price for food that would support that pay rate then that's their lookout. Food will rot, suppliers will go bust, the market will adjust.

Factor in the fact that the cost of food imports will go up, and maybe food prices will correct to a level were a decent price for food and a decent wage/conditions for agricultural workers.

We grow 60% of UK food here, and supply 2% of the workforce. The average family used to spend 25-35% of it;s budget on food, now it's more like 10-15%.

I don't get why market forces are only ever supposed to apply to (potential) employees, and not employers. If, as an employer, you offer unattractive (in terms of the market) pay or terms and conditions then of course you are going to struggle to attract staff.

There is another way to get people to take less desirable jobs:

Have an actual high unemployment rate, which is why Eastern Europeans go to the UK to pick fruit and most UK residents won't even give it a thought.

The problem here is the false premiss of high unemployment in the UK.

There are lots of sectors in which there's a lot of unskilled (as in having no prior qualifications, it doesn't mean they don't contain skills or that you have to learn on them) minimum wage or less with accommodation jobs- fruit picking, care work, cleaning. They aren't always full-time hours- care work can be erratic, you have to travel there. I know a couple of people who have done live-in jobs where they get the min wage, but it goes a huge amount further if they live-in.

The other problem, as everyone says, is that it's crazy to destabilize your benefits for a short job you may hate.

Basically, it's hard to make a wage out of these jobs without compromising your living accommodation or something else- people from poorer countries are prepared to do that, not many British people are now.

I don't blame all British people for that, but some are quite lazy- my relative has been on benefits and never finds work that suits their temperament/hours, it's embarrassing. I have done lots of crappy jobs over the years, but they are tiring and boring, and one great thing about working in the 80's was that you could pick one up, and if you didn't like it, you just left and went elsewhere, I was a chambermaid for a week, then left.

We aren't desperate enough yet, it's not just a work ethic thing, but that may change. When you go to a new country, all your qualifications aren't recognized (unless scheme to do so) and you end up having to do whatever you can, which is why you get well-educated people doing unskilled jobs.

We don't have high unemployment.

As PP have said, we don't have high unemployment at the moment. We are pretty close to full employment. However, when unemployment rose during the recession (as it is likely to do now), I still think farmers found it hard to get fruit pickers.

I do think the improvements in farming technology/methods have resulted in larger farms with longer growing seasons , gone is my little local PYO farm where I worked 30 years , then when the fruit was in season , it was very much a 'all hands on deck' mentalilty . Now a lot of fruit farms are large very commercial concerns who cannot be expected to rely on teenagers supplemeting their beer money , they need a reliable workforce who will be there for the duration of the now extended season . Not sure how many of these farms can offer year round work for the number of staff they currently employ over the season iyswim ?

Desirable unemployment: 2-3%
Unemployment in the UK: 5%
Unemployment in Germany: 4.3%
Average unemployment in the EU: 8.9%
Unemployment in Greece: 24%

The UK DOES NOT a high unemployment rate have.
Nobody is desperate enough to go fruit picking.

We don't actually have high unemployment

Isn't that at least in part because the in work benefits (tax credits) are creating under employment ? So on paper people are employed, but it is part time work.

I remember on threads about benefits something about a 16 hour a week rule ?

Admittedly from the far from the best informed position of looking in from outside, it looks like maybe a benefits system has been created that allows employers to have access to workers that are in too precarious a position to band together, all while paying below "natural" market rate because the government is making up the difference between income and cost of living. But that system is in of itself helping to create an artificially inflated cost of living (or artificially deflating the true cost of goods/services.... not sure which, maybe both ? Is both even possible ?) , because it's masking what employers actually can/want to pay.

I may be completely wrong and have got entirely the wrong end of the stick. But that is more or less the impression I've got from information gleaned on here.

NB - I'm not having a pop at Britain and looking down my nose. We are not in such an amazingly wonderful position over here that there is any room for a sense of superiority. Far from it.

The longer season also means that most students can't start early enough- fruit picking used to be a great job for students that were free from end May to start of October, but pickers are generally needed earlier than that now. Couple that with traditional seasonal workers finding it hard to stop/start benefits, and there is suddenly no local workforce.

There was a TV programme a couple of years ago about this. The farmer paid by amount picked but anyone who got under that had to receive minimum wage. Most pickers were getting amounts that were £8+ per hour - not minimum wage at all.

The British people they did get to try were slow, but not experienced, the farmer said if they sped up he would be happy to keep them.

But the TV presenter had problems recruiting people, lots of British people were saying 'no'.

iPost

Most other countries also massage the numbers. I reckon the values are comparable.

Coupled with the benefits system in the UK, it does follow that people aren't sufficiently desperate to work for peanuts and in gruelling conditions.
UK farmers have to compete in the market with lower wages abroad and unless they are subsidised, then it's simply not affordable.

There was a scheme in the 1980s whereby young Eastern Europeans could come over on a work permit to pick fruit here. They were paid and accommodated, usually in caravans or dormitory accommodation. At the end of the work permit period, they were given two weeks holiday before going home. It worked well, and the same young people used to come every year. I imagine this is what we will go back to.

So many interesting views. Thank you.

I am unsure of the status of our unemployed. Are the figures on those who are actually not working at all or on those receiving JSA?
Am currently studying statistics so have a deep suspicion of them!
(And also have my son who is unemployed but now has to receive universal credit so does he fall in to the unemployed number?)

And I do feel the 'quality' of work that takes someone from being unemployed to employed for the government figures is not necessarily what I would call 'having a full time job'

But anyway we have SOME unemployed people who would not pick fruit, or can't find work picking fruit.

And carrying on with my supposing, are children brought up now to not want to do hard work? Or with an unrealistic view of what their working life may look like?

Lweji

In Italy I doubt there is a single figure that isn't "massaged". And hard core Thai, not beautician softly softly at that. So I think you are probably right in terms of comparison.

Dont forget that the EE worker who has come over to do this type of work is already motivated. He/she demonstrates this by the fact that they did travel for work.

As a PP said, the people who are motivated and able to do that type of work (long hours, low pay, seasonal, not necessarily fruit picking) from the local community will already be doing it.

So you arent comparing like with like.

'people from poorer countries are prepared to do that, not many British people are now.'

Often, people from poorer countries can do that. They can come on their own, leaving family at home, live in HMOs, work for less than min wage due to the currency being higher here and at home, their costs of living are lower so it translates to even more money.

But it's easier to say British people are lazy and on benefits playing Xbox.

I have been unemployed on and off since 2010. I take temporary work when I can but I couldn't do fruit picking even if I lived in the area because -

1. I am a single parent with young children, I can't take work that starts before about 9am because I can't get childcare locally before 8am.

2. I am late 40's. I am healthy, but I'm willing to bet that a week of fruit picking - manual work involving long hours, a lot of bending and kneeling that I'm not used to - would leave me with joint and back issues such that I couldn't start again the next week. People who haven't done much fruit picking don't realise how arduous it is. Most fruit pickers need to be young.

If fruit picking were available school hours only I would still give it a go - no childcare worries and shorter hours, so less arduous. But of course much of it takes place during the school holidays. And farmers don't want to hire people on short hours. They want as much picked as fast as possible, so the young EE workers are an easier bet.

Students seem an obvious choice, but most students would need a car to get to the farms. Only the foreign workers get accommodation on site. If a student is well off enough to have a car there are many better paid opportunities for them.

So fruit pickers need to be

1. Young
2. With transport
3. Healthy with no physical disabilities
4. With no need of childcare
5. Able to work for very low wages, as they have very low outgoings. Benefits/Tax credits will take too long to catch up with this type of work.

Most British unemployed people have issues with one or more of those categories.

My son walked up to a local farm and asked if there was any short term summer work last year. In the past lots have local teens worked there. Some were unreliable apparently. The farmer told him he now only employs EE.

He employs around a hundred staff. The managers are from the UK and so are the truck drivers. Everyone else is from EE. Some of the workers live at the farm in accommodation farmer has had built. I'm guessing this is mainly young single people. Many more live in houses the farmer has bought up in the village some of these are families.

I've no idea if he pays the minimum wage. All I do know is that ne makes no secret of the fact that he will not employ local youngsters.