The number of EU workers seeking jobs in the UK has fallen since the Brexit vote, with construction managers seeing increasingly less applications
Sky News has reported that construction managers are facing increasing struggles to hire European workers since the Brexit vote.
Construction is an industry that relies on skilled overseas workers, particularly those from Europe. There have been warnings issued recently over the cost of hiring EU workers post-Brexit and the impact changes to immigration would have on the already growing skills crisis in the UK. Now, it seems as if difficulties are already being felt.
Problems recruiting workers
Managers in the sector revealed to the news site that they were finding it difficult to find suitable candidates. One construction manager, Gary Clarke, told Sky News he had stopped receiving applications from eastern Europeans altogether.
Figures showed that for the year up to last September net migration dropped by 59,000 to 273,000. Sky News said the depth of the issue was particularly clear at one of the largest building developments in London, which used to hire 40 per cent of the workforce from eastern Europe.
Clarke explained: “I had ten interviews yesterday and only got three people who had potential to work for us and they were all English lads from Kent and Essex.”
UK workers not as skilled
Clarke said British workers are not as well trained as eastern European candidates and have higher levels of sickness. In fact, the sickness rate among eastern Europeans is 10 times lower than that of their British colleagues. Additionally, UK workers push for higher pay.
He said: “We simply don’t have the amount of skilled labour to run large projects without eastern European help.
“And they’re very skilled and excellent hard workers.”
Clarke added that he was concerned eastern European workers would take their skills to other EU member states if the UK becomes too difficult to work in.
