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?

And there are people between jobs, as is natural.

Another measure is long term unemployment (>12 months).
Again, the UK is not doing badly, at 5th lowest in Europe: 32% of 5% unemployed. So, about 1.6% of the total job force.

ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gdp-and-beyond/quality-of-life/long-term-unemployment-rate

I know it's a complicated matter, but you'd have thought it wasn't beyond the wit of man to devise a welfare system with enough flexibility to allow seasonal work.

Many people doing seasonal work aren't relying on welfare at all. They move from place to place to pick up work. It is not an easy option, compared to staying in one place and relying on the government to fill in any income gaps. I really wouldn't envy out itinerant workers or believe they are doing local people out of a job.

I yield to your superior travel agent knowledge User !
When I tried to find cheap flights to warsaw, I came up with £120 round trip Warsaw / and £243 for Ljubljana. I guess bus must be cheaper.

8 weeks of 50 hour week at £7/hr (optimistic, illegal?) = £2800. Presumably living costs ~ £80/wk, so net profit ~ £2000 for the Pole who can cheaply reach Warsaw.

People also travel by road.

Im not sure about fruit picking but I know people that run a hotel business. They used to employ local seasonal workers many years ago, mostly students looking to make a few quid while off uni or college for the summer.

They now rely on EE workers because in recent years they have found locals increasingly unreliable and work shy. They really tried to give locals a chance but just got fed up with the 'bad attitude' and the huge effort involved in training them to do very basic things. I know this is not true of all young people but it makes sense that employers will choose those the workers that are proven to be the most reliable and hard working.

FarAwayHills

Sometimes, ime, 'bad attitude' means things like not wanting to work through breaks you're legally entitled to, and wanting to get paid for all the hours you actually work.

Fascinating thread.

In addition to all the reasons mentioned, I think we have to bear in mind that migrants as a group have high selectivity - they are typically younger, healthier, more highly motivated, with fewer responsibilities tying them down than their home populations. So it is almost inevitable that they will be able to out-work many local unemployed people, who probably self-select the other way - perhaps older, less healthy, less highly motivated, with more ties that reduce their labour flexibility.

I'm sure unemployed british people will get to do this under PM Boris. Workfare anyone?

There are similar issues in our local seaside town with jobs on the fairground and in hotels which have all the same issues. Locals are less likely to tolerate poor pay and conditions, less happy with zero hours contracts, less willing to work very long or unsociable hours, etc. There is also the fact that locals will spend their money locally whereas many of the migrants take or send it home where it is worth far more to them so the locals feel poorly paid where the migrants feel like Blackpool millionaires

The new universal credits are suppose to make temporary/seasonal work easier, I won't hold my breath on that tho.

Yep... You can practically smell workfare on the Horizon

As for 0 hour contracts, I think they should be banned, how can ppl survive with those workin conditions, and every1 with a 0 hour contract now ticks a box (lowering the unemployment figure) it's a disgrace