“Thousands apply for fruit and veg picker jobs..”

Alcoholic_Author

Alcoholic_Author

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www.bbc.co.uk

Coronavirus: Thousands apply for fruit and veg grower jobs

Coronavirus-related travel restrictions have left a labour shortage as the picking season starts.
www.bbc.co.uk

Record numbers of people in the UK are looking for farming jobs, according to figures released by job search engines.

Totaljobs says it has seen 50,000 searches for farming jobs in the past week alone.

Steve Warnham of Totaljobs said workers “who have been temporarily displaced due to Covid-19 are now looking for roles in other sectors”.

The UK faces a shortage of fruit and vegetable pickers because of travel restrictions on overseas workers.

Totaljobs said it had seen an 83% increase in applications for agricultural roles in the past month.

It added that searches for terms such as “fruit picker” or “farm worker” had surged by 338% and 107% respectively.
 


The beauty of freedom of movement as idealised by the EU - the ability to shift cheap labour to wherever the shabby entrepreneurs need it and undermine hard-won living standards in what are in effect discrete tax/welfare systems. But objecting to freedom of movement is for ignorant people who do it because they don't like foreigners. I read it on here.
 
If farmers want staff, they need to make it attractive to workers.

I'm sure there's plenty of students who'd live on a decent camp site (with decent facilities) for a month in their summer breaks. Plus the types of people who struggle for work who end up doing seasonal work already, for example postal type work at Xmas.

I remember Brits used to go to mainland Europe to do fruit picking in the 90's. What comes around......
 
PTR said:
If farmers want staff, they need to make it attractive to workers.

I'm sure there's plenty of students who'd live on a decent camp site (with decent facilities) for a month in their summer breaks. Plus the types of people who struggle for work who end up doing seasonal work already, for example postal type work at Xmas.

I remember Brits used to go to mainland Europe to do fruit picking in the 90's. What comes around......
Click to expand...

One of me mates went Tulip picking.
 
Qwerty said:
Surely it should affect your furlough payments.
Click to expand...

Not according to Martin Lewis last week. He told the cameramen recording his show, most of whom are self employed, that they could furlough themselves from their own company but then go and work for someone else’s company doing the same job.
 
PTR said:
If farmers want staff, they need to make it attractive to workers.

I'm sure there's plenty of students who'd live on a decent camp site (with decent facilities) for a month in their summer breaks. Plus the types of people who struggle for work who end up doing seasonal work already, for example postal type work at Xmas.

I remember Brits used to go to mainland Europe to do fruit picking in the 90's. What comes around......
Click to expand...
Great idea tbf

Few of my mates did the Aussie trip for a year doing casual farm labour between uni and starting work.
 

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