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British Retailer: Brexit Makes it Impossible to Hire Enough Staff
Posted On 09 Mar 2017
According to a new feature article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, a major British retailer says the vast majority of their job applicants come from outside the country. The director of human resources for the chain Pret a Manger told Parliament last week that only 1 in 50 applicants are actually British.
HR director Andrea Wareham told the economic affairs committee that 65% of Pret a Manger’s workforce is comprised of foreigners from other EU countries. She claimed the retailer would be unable to fill all of its positions if Brexit forced them to turn other EU nationals away.
“It’s not in selecting, it’s a difficulty in attracting,” she said of the problem. “I would say one in 50 people who apply to our company to work is British. If I had to fill all our vacancies with British-only people I would not be able to fill them because of the lack of applications.”
Wareham insisted that she wasn’t taking a political or moral stand on immigration or diversity, but only laying out the facts of a post-Brexit reality.
“We are entirely accepting that the number of EU nationals will go down over time. We would love to increase the number of British nationals and we are excited about this,” she said.
However, she said, there were not many young Brits particularly excited about working hard for relatively low pay.
Kevin Green, who runs the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, had the same concerns. According to Green, a food processing plant had tried to replace immigrant workers with British citizens, only to find that UK nationals weren’t interested in the job.
From The Guardian:
He said it held lots of roadshows, open days at the processing plant, but “one month on, 75% of UK nationals were no longer there”.
“What is that about? These are hard jobs, potentially physically demanding. I’m not sure we prepare people very well. They are paid national living wage. We need to work on attitudes to work, that’s a challenge for employers,” said Green.
We’re sure to hear many of the same arguments from business owners in the U.S., particularly as President Trump begins cracking down hard on illegal immigration. And while we’re certain there’s an element of truth to the old “Americans won’t do these jobs” quip, we’re not certain that it’s as universally true as we’re told it is.
Maybe we’ll have to make adjustments here and there. Maybe prices in certain sectors will go up.
Maybe some companies will not be able to survive without illegal labor.
Well…a burglar may not be able to survive without burgling. Does that mean we look the other way?
We’re not going to be convinced that our economy depends on having quasi-open borders. And if our economy does depend on the violation of American law, then maybe there’s something broken in our economy.
Maybe the British have to get their people over the mindset of being on the dole being a way of life. Let them take these jobs or get taken off the welfare rolls. Don’t work – don’t eat. We all need to stop supporting able bodied people who prefer to lollygag around rather than work for a living.
Yep.
Amen
From my observations that theory could also apply in the United States. I have encountered many who seem to subscribe to the philosophy that being born and raised in the U.S. means they are too good to do a day’s work for a day’s pay. Perhaps, as you say, if these lazy folk were taken off of welfare and other associated benefits they may be glad to undertake some of these jobs they are now too arrogant to do.
If U really want more Americans in the labor force, advocate 4 better overall compensation. Well-paid people R able 2 enhance the aggregate demand that currently is R economic shortfall problem.
I recently retired after working 21+ years here in the U.S. and found that the further up the ladder (of success) and consequently the compensation scale you go, the lazier and more inept you find those employed, which would seem to indicate that the level of pay is not an indicator of who is best capable.
Obviously not. But, barring rank incompetence, they all managed 2 to their jobs. Am I right?. The fact that what is paid is only slightly related to ability or diligence is yet another reason 2 advocate 4 better pay 4 everyone.
Aggregate demand.
I can only relate my own experience and observations but in response to your assertion that they ALL managed to do their jobs, I can disagree. How else can you explain someone who is so inept that an employee who is further down on the “ladder of success” has to accompany them to management meetings to explain what is transpiring. Perhaps those who aspire to be “management” should be required to undergo intelligence testing in order to qualify for those positions.
Our short fall is paying people to sit on their ass while others work so they can eat, have free phones, free food, free health care & a host of other freebies. The Great Society of LBJ has been one of the most dismal failures in modern history. Oh but his intentions were good & that is all that ever matters to the everyday buffoon liberals i.e.: ObomaCare.
We’re never gonna become a prosperous country until U bourgeois people give up on your moralistic economic views.
,
Deserving or not is 1) An ultimately subjective notion, and 2) Economically irrelevant anyway since economists all know that, “A dollar is a dollar, and a dime is a dime,”
The Government Created that system, and businesses only hiring part time to avoid paying benefits .
90 million people in US who have stopped looking for work and are not counted in the Unemployment numbers.
These are people who want to be hired at the top rather than working their way up!
If the unemployment rate hits 4%, it it supposed to basically mean we are at full employment. Those 90 million need to be counted again for accuracy sake.
I grew up on a farm so I know how to work. Perhaps all youth between 16 and 25 should have to work on a gram for one year or enlist in the military.
Either should help get these kids off their asses.
I think All people who have finished high school or have quit and reached 18 should be required to enlist in the service or perform community service, such as habitat for humanity ect. Sitting on moms couch doesn’t prepare young people for life. Give welfare of any type drags people down and the party never quits, boredom can lead to bad behavior. I was drafted and although I went to Nam, any community service was in order.
Thank you for your service!
29 March is Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day!
I was in training but the Vietnam war ended and I didn’t have to go.
thank you, it was good for a wild kid who needed some discipline
This applies to the USA also!!
The British let all these foreign people into the country because many felt they were to good for general labor . It happened in the EU going back to the 70s.. Many Americans feel the same way as welfare pays more than a $10.00 job .
That’s what happens when you allow business to become addicted to cheap foreign labor. They continually offer lower and lower wages in a race to the bottom for their employees. They (business) are subsequently shocked (well not shocked as they are fully aware of the ramificatons of their actions) when actual citizens will not work for these paupers wages, when laws inevitably change and bring access to cheap foreign labor to a halt.
Eliminate the dole and they’ll have more applicants than they need. Same is true here.
Had a friend visit Canada last year and was told the same thing about the labor force. Canada also has some sort of minimum living standard. Folks prefer their “Free Stuff”over working. In order for the Government to provide all the “Free Stuff”, including Healthcare, the real workers are taxed at a 65% rate.
I guess we’re both in the same boat.same problem here as the younger generation has been spoiled.nobody seems to want to get their hands dirty.they have only a high school diploma and expect to make $15 per hour to work at mickey dees.on the other end of the spectrum we have over 5 million highly skilled job openings here we can’t fill.but not to worry as the Indians and Asian will gladly fill that gap and the reason is simple.they’re highly educated and know what it is to grow up poor!
People tend to take the path of least resistance. If people are paid not to work they won’t work. The pay may be a lot less, but why work if one can get by without it. Lazy is dominant over work for way too many, but someday, taxpayer money will be exhausted.
if these places are like the farm jobs they claim Americans weren’t willing to take, they have the deck stacked against the people they don’t want. The farms were making it where the Americans could not actually afford to hold the job, working them half days, only working them a couple of days a week, it cost them more to get to the job than they would make on those half days and no one can live on pay from a couple of days a week even if it is good pay. This may not be the case in this situation, but if they prefer to hire from the immigrant community, they will find a way to fix it that way.
I live in Los Angeles the illegal alien and immigrant capital of the USA and I can tell you that 99% of illegals no longer work on farms nor do they eat or sell the fruit on the trees in their yards.
What they do do is steal/use your dead grandparents, mother, father, uncle, niece etc.. social security numbers and work jobs that USA citizens would work.
That who will do the farm work is BS propaganda. Machinery does most farming jobs. Just say…… Not much farming going on in Los Angeles.
I don’t pretend to know about Briton but here in America we give good stamps and welfare and food subsidies that income by selling drugs instead of taking low paying jobs. The result is that illegals fill that need draining the country of dollars that could be used to provide health insurance to the needy.
sounds like ‘welfare’ has gone out of control … so fix it….dead beats need to eat too…..cut ….cut….cut.
I wonder if the Brits would accept young Anglo-Americans wanting to experience the UK and Europe for a few years? How much do the alluded to positions pay and what is the cost of living in the localities? Funny how that is not mentioned in these articles?
Easy peasy. On welfare today, tomorrow you have a job offer or you are off welfare. Win win situation for everyone.
The Brits are accustomed to the “Nanny” Government “taking care of” the Oafs that don’t want to work. The “working class” is finally figuring out that the Nanny Government is not the provider – the workers are the provider with their tax dollars and taxes are high in the UK. THAT IS THE WAY SOCIALISM WORKS. In the USA we have the problem of the Working Class NOT wanting to support the Oafs. It is time for the Taxpayers in the USA to DEMAND that every able bodied person that is living off the Welfare System (that is now a Professional Class – “Professional Welfare Recipient”) either Work or lose ALL benefits. The US Educational System (controlled by the Liberal Elite Establishment for decades) TEACHES and ADVOCATES how to USE the System. It is time to Drain the Swamp and Make America Great AND WORKING Again.
Maybe you need to pay higher wages, it’s supply and demand, if I can make more money for less effort elsewhere, I WILL!
take them off the welfare rolls and make them work
I don’t know about the UK dole, but the US dole has a way of keeping people on the dole. They cut you off if you start working. What should happen is that until you earn enough money to survive, you can continue to collect some money. It should be gradually taken away maybe for every dollar you earn, your welfare check goes down 10 cents. that way people would just not get cut off with not enough to live and it would give incentive to earn more money, not just by selling drugs, or trinkets on the corner.
Todays “NEWS” in this site is WOW! An advertisement and two very old news briefs – is somebody in charge of news?? Are you guy looking for a new writer? If you aren’t – it would be a good idea.