Roundtable with Jimmy Davies (JD), divisional directorfor agriculture at Staffline Recruitment,John Hardman (JH),executive director at HOPS Labour Solutions,Rob Orme (RO),chief executive at Concordia.
How is labour sourcing looking for this season? Are we seeing much impact yet from SAWS ending?
Rob Orme: I’m not anticipating any major problems for this year. There’s plenty of labour in Bulgaria and Romania, though there has been a drop from Poland in the last 10 years. In the short term we anticipate that supply will hold up.
What we are seeing, though, is people are using horticulture as a stepping stone into other sectors. The seasonality and location of the work makes it more difficult in terms of retention of staff.
John Hardman: At this juncture, there is more supply than demand from, in particular, Romania and Bulgaria, and this looks to continue for the foreseeable future. It has been noted by growers that the quality of workforce is already diminishing. Supply from Poland, Latvia and Slovakia has all but dried up.
Jimmy Davies: Where growers are adapting and planning ahead, labour supply is looking comfortable for the foreseeable future.Where decisions are left to the last minute the quality and reliability of their supply will become a concern sometime from the end of the 2015 season into 2016.
While we predict some negative impacts of SAWS ending, for now the impact is positive, workers are staying longer past the SAWS six-month limit and without the SAWS limitations we have seasonal workers who have been with us for over 12 months now and our average length of stay across all of our contracts is 37 weeks – nearly double what was achieved under SAWS.
Is there any change to the countries you are sourcing from?
JH: HOPS supplies mainly from agricultural universities, which is one of our unique selling points as our workforce tend to have a higher proportion of younger seasonal workers, with a good level of English speaking skills and aptitude for hard work.
The biggest worry is that “returnees” are sourcing labour on farms, and acting as gangmasters back in their own country, and taking a job-finding fee from friends and family, without a GLA licence, which, of course, is illegal.
JD: The European Union, including the UK, is where our staff are sourced from – Romania, Bulgaria and Poland are the key overseas countries.Our first recruitment option is to look at the resource we have working in the UK and move workers between contracts, enabling them to follow the crop seasons.This has been a big success compared to the SAWS arrangement.
How big a political hot potato is seasonal labour? Is the debate around migrants making it more difficult to get a new scheme in place?
RO: It will be the hot potato of the election. The reality though is that horticulture and several other sectors are dependent on migrant labour. The main thing for us is to focus on supporting growers and making sure
the environment is as effective as
possible.
JD: Unfortunately, seasonal labour and SAWS has been drawn into the wider debate on immigration.We can argue that SAWS reduced immigration while in place, however the general public and politicians bundle it up with the wider immigration debate, which without question will make getting a replacement much more difficult.Demonstrating that SAWS is different from immigration will be a challenge for the industry.
JH: The adage “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” really applies here. The majority of seasonal workers don’t want to reside in the UK. It’s simply too expensive outside of agriculture, they want to carry out seasonal work and return home with what can be over two years’ salary in four to six months. While we have an oversupply of labour, there will be no “son of SAWS”, and certainly not in the next government, as anything implemented implies that a government is being soft on immigration. Only when quality and supply starts to diminish and the price of fresh produce escalates and the supermarkets lobby MPs will this happen, and that won’t be any time soon.
Do you feel a new SAWS-style scheme is necessary in the long term? What are the chances of that happening?
JD: I believe as an industry we can do much more to meet our demands than wait for a new SAWS scheme.The labour market has already started to tighten across other sectors outside of agriculture. Some areas of the food and logistics sectors are finding recruitment more challenging, however, in agriculture and horticulture we are not. The farming and growing sectors have advantages over temporary work in other sectors; the employment experience on farms is in the main very good, the opportunity to earn money on farms is better than other comparable sectors, and farms can provide good, low-cost and compliant accommodation which other sectors cannot.We need to shout about this and sell the opportunity better.
RO: I hope there will be another scheme. It’s just a question of when – I would keep pushing for a scheme because it gives the sector the confidence that it will be able to recruit labour and put long-term planning in place. As soon as the industry becomes nervous then planning becomes a problem.
JH: The need for a scheme requires monitoring, with the collaboration of both growers, co-operatives and supermarkets. There’s no question that we’ll have plenty of supply of seasonal workers going forward from Romania and Bulgaria, but the issue is the quality of those workers and their efficiency. Only when the supermarket price points start to rise and supermarkets lobby government will anything happen, and that’s not going to be for a jolly long time.
To what extent do you agree with the government’s view that British people can fill the industry’s labour needs?
JH: The industry, without a shadow of a doubt, would like to employ British people, but the issues are those of practicality and nothing else. The unemployment hotspots are generally not where there is a vast requirement for seasonal labour, the welfare rules do not favour those coming in or out of seasonal work, and British seasonal workers find it hard to integrate into workplaces dominated by eastern Europeans.
There is a huge opportunity for British people to work on farms, but more on a skilled basis, which requires training. Well-run and successful welfare-to-work programmes benefit all concerned, but British workers are not the answer to filling the industry’s seasonal needs long term. Those who think that are fools, and show their total naivety when it comes to the seasonal workforce – if any of these people would like to discuss this with me I would be delighted to do so... at 4am, in a cabbage field, down by the Wash, in January. Then they may see why we need seasonal workers from afar.
JD: I disagree and I believe the government is slowly starting to see this.I do believe there are opportunities to recruit more local people on to farms, however in reality the numbers will be very low and will not make any meaningful contribution towards meeting the industry’s requirements for seasonal workers.
RO: Plenty of businesses are trying to recruit UK staff, but placing UK nationals in horticulture is not the answer. People are aware it’s not the answer for UK people to fill these positions. Migrant labour is used all over the world. It’s predominantly used because it’s seasonal work and local people want long-term security.
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