News / Council raises Brexit job fears in parliament
SHETLAND Islands Council has stressed the importance of existing EU nationals being granted the right to remain, and for the islands to be able to continue attracting European workers to avoid the danger of a post-Brexit recruitment crisis.
The local authority has used a submission to a Scottish Parliament committee to highlight how the £1 billion isles economy, with virtually negligible unemployment, could be vulnerable.
Politicians including Shetland MSP Tavish Scott and SNP Highlands and Islands list MSP Maree Todd have warned in recent weeks that the UK’s impending exit from the EU could worsen the difficulty employers in sectors such as fish processing and the NHS face in filling vacancies.
The council’s submission to Holyrood’s culture, tourism, Europe and external relations committee highlights the unusually high proportion of the working-age population who are in employment.
The percentage of 16-64 year olds claiming jobseeker’s allowance is the lowest in the UK at 0.7 per cent – a quarter of the Scottish average of 2.8 per cent.
It is unclear exactly how many EU nationals live and work in Shetland. In the 2011 census 2.3 per cent of isles residents (512 people) were born in other EU countries – up from 0.8 per cent in 2001, though those figures do not include any seasonal workers.
But the SIC document is clear that EU nationals represent “an important and enabling part of the Shetland workforce, not least in the economically significant fish sector”.
“A crude summary of this situation would be that there are, in some instances, more jobs than there are workers to undertake them,” the submission – compiled by the local authority’s economic development department – states.
“The reality of Shetland life is that some working age people will have more than one job; and that demand outstrips supply in some service industries (i.e. construction and ancillary trades).
“Attracting skilled and highly qualified workers to fill vacant positions (i.e. in the NHS) remains a perennial challenge; and, with such high levels of general employment, filling sufficient manual, less skilled positions (i.e. in hospitality or fish processing) from the local workforce can also present difficulties.”
The two “broad outcomes” desirable for Shetland’s economy are:
- “That those already resident and employed in Shetland (and, hence, their families who may be living here with them) be granted indefinite leave to stay in the UK with rights equal to those born in the UK;
- “And that Shetland be able to readily attract EU national workers from the EU to fill seasonal or permanent skilled and unskilled positions.”
A December 2016 report from the local authority on English as a second overseas language (ESOL) is described as a “revealing snapshot of where demand for EU workers exists in the local economy”.
“Fish processing (and aquaculture) is a significant employment stream – but so too are trades and hospitality (kitchen porters, hotel housekeepers, waiters),” the submission states.
“A number of local tradesmen are now of EU national origin, from general housebuilders through to specific trades (painters and decorators, plasterers, electricians, etc) – the positive effect of this on the local community should not be underestimated as, for many years, the demand for tradesmen in Shetland has far outstripped supply leading to considerable delays in obtaining their services – this is particularly significant given Shetland’s ongoing housing shortage and trend for new-build houses.”
A recent Office for National Statistics survey found that 37.6 per cent of fish processing jobs were held by EU nationals across the UK, and the submission says it appears that proportion is “closer locally to 50 per cent”.
The council also refers to recent comments from Grieg Seafood Shetland’s managing director Grant Cumming.
Earlier this month he told Shetland News his company would “really struggle” without its EU workforce, which makes up over half of the 45 posts in Grieg’s processing factory.
In last year’s ESOL report, Shetland Catch set out that its 55-strong workforce would double in seasons when its Gremista factory was in full production and a “high percentage” were from other EU countries, particularly Latvia and Hungary along with some Lithuanian, Polish, Bulgarian and Czech workers.
The factory has since been taken over by Norwegian company Pelagia, whose chief executive Egil Magnue Haugstad told this website earlier this month that EU labour now makes up a small proportion of its seasonal workforce.
The council also broadly welcomed a series of proposals aimed at ensuring Scotland can continue to attract foreign workers as helpful for Shetland’s goal of ensuring “stability for our existing, resident EU national workforce and fluidity of movement for our seasonal EU national workforce”.
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