UK businesses struggle to recruit workers as EU migration turns negative
UK businesses have warned of growing shortages of skilled workers as Brexit uncertainties causes EU migrants to move out of the country.
According to new research from the Confederation of British Industry, nine in 10 businesses say the threat of Brexit has already affected their ability to recruit and train staff in 2018.
Matthew Fell, the CBI’s chief UK policy director, said: “These latest statistics highlight the continuing trend of falling net EU migration amid growing shortages across all skills levels in the UK. Ninety-two per cent of businesses cited Brexit as impacting their ability to recruit and train staff in 2018. This means hospitals, schools and housebuilders are already struggling to get the staff they need.
“Banning workers from overseas earning less than £30,000 [as proposed by the government’s migration advisory committee] will only make this worse.”
On Thursday the Office for National Statistics revealed that the number of EU workers coming to the UK had fallen to a six-year low and had turned negative with an estimated 27,000 EU citizens entering the UK between April and June as 30,000 left.
Net migration from the EU to the UK was 74,000 in the year to June 2018, the lowest since 2012. This is a dramatic fall when compared with 189,000 EU migrants that came into the country in the year to June 2016, just before the EU referendum.
EU citizens in the UK still face uncertainty about their future given that the “settled status” scheme that will ensure their right to stay after Brexit is being piloted and will not to open to wider applications until 2019.
A white paper setting out the UK’s future immigration policy with the EU has been delayed for over a year and Home Secretary Sajid Javid said it might not be ready for December this year.
According to the Financial Times, immigration minister Caroline Nokes, said the figures showed that the UK was still “attracting and retaining highly skilled workers”.
“However, we are committed to controlled and sustainable migration and I am pleased that net migration has fallen from its peak levels,” she said. “As we leave the EU we will put in place an immigration system which works in the best interests of the whole of the UK and further detail on that will be set out very soon.”