The agricultural campaign foments employment in the province. This year it has employed about 112,000 people between January and May, 13.6% more than in 2015. Of these, only 1.87% are temporary workers hired at origin (from Morocco), that have done the job for more than two years and that have committed to return to their country, i.e. specialized labor for 227 companies in the sector. The increased activity in this campaign is reflected in the increase (35%) of peons during the first three months. In fact, yesterday industry representatives acknowledged that there had been spikes in production were they would have needed twice the number of workers than they had.
Enrique Perez Viguera, the deputy of the Government in Huelva, presented this global data after having chaired the Provincial Monitoring Committee of the Convention for the Planning, Coordination and Labor Integration of Migration Flows in the Agricultural Campaign Season, a forum that brings together administrations, companies, unions, and social agents.
The increase in labor demonstrates that the sector is a strategic pillar of the economy of the province, as well as an indispensable job engine that can hire local labor and reduce the unemployment rate in the province. Therefore, Perez Viguera insisted, once again, that the sector needed to bet on local workers to continue reducing the unemployment rate in the province giving priority to the workers of farming villages.
The agricultural companies and the trade unions have requested hiring more people in origin for the second phase of the collection in the 2017 campaign to ensure that the blueberry, blackberry, citrus, stone fruits, and strawberry crops are collected.
They understand that they need reinforcement of Moroccan temporary workers from late March to late May, i.e. throughout the highest peaks of the collection. The aim is to ensure the continued collection of fruits in the periods that the collection of strawberries coincides with the harvest of the other berries.
The provincial committee unanimously decided to move this request to the State Commission of Migration Flows for analysis, once they know the dates and number of seasonal workers hired in origin, to respond to this timely and temporary need within the second phase of the collection.
What is clear is that, for the sixth consecutive year, the planting phase will be carried out by local labor, either by domestic workers or by foreigners that have regularized their situation in the country. Yesterday, the State Committee approved not authorizing any hires in origin in order to prioritize hiring local workers to reduce the unemployment rate in the province.
The last time that these hires were permitted was in 2010, when the agricultural sector was allowed to recruit 972 laborers of Moroccan origin, 860 of which were eventually used to plant crops.
Source: huelvainformacion.es