Former Environment Minister George Eustice has called on the UK government to agree a new reciprocal visa scheme with the EU for workers aged under 35. This might address ongoing skills shortages in key sectors such as food and drink.
Eustice has stated that the current skills-based immigration “does not correspond to the needs of our economy”, citing labor shortages in the food industry, which he said were “contributing to inflation”.
“My proposal is that we commence bilateral negotiations with EU member states, starting with countries like Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states, and widen it to the whole of the EU eventually, to establish a reciprocal youth-mobility visa scheme,” he said.
Fruit pickers
A shortage of migrant workers in the food industry is a cause for concern, not in the least for seasonal activities such as picking fruit. While Home Secretary Suella Braverman said there was "no good reason" that the UK couldn’t train its own fruit pickers in order to reduce its reliance on migrant workers, the British Retail Consortium stated that it blames Brexit for “exacerbating labor shortages” in the agriculture sector.
Source: export.org.uk