LONDON

- Britain is facing an acute shortage of labor to meet the huge demand to fill the jobs that the market needs and that have been vacant for months.

The British labor market has reached a level where it suffers from a shortage of workers amounting to millions of jobs, prompting companies to sound the alarm that the country's production wheel will be severely damaged in the long term.

And major companies are putting pressure on the government to approve plans to facilitate labor migration to Britain, and to ease the restrictions it imposed on immigration, otherwise a number of jobs will not find manpower to do them.

How big is the shortage in the British labor market?

According to the latest official statistics during the last week of September, there are about 1.9 million job offers in the market waiting to be obtained.

These data provided by the British Labor and Employment Confederation (REC), are the result of a compilation of data from the labor market from January 2020 to September 2021, and show that the British labor market has reached a record deficit that it has not reached for more than a decade.

According to the same source, during one week of September (between 13 and 19 of it), more than 223,000 new jobs were announced, coinciding with the return from summer holidays and the beginning of the new school year.

The British Confederation of Labor and Employment commented on these figures, saying that it was "good news if there was a shortage of workers, which contributes to the slowdown in the economy's recovery from the consequences of the Corona pandemic," adding that its latest survey showed that 3 out of 5 companies looking for employees suffer from a shortage in 30% of workers, and 97% of these companies said that it takes a long time before finding new workers.


What are the reasons for this deficiency?

There are 3 main factors for this huge shortage of labor, they are:

  • The increase in the number of elderly people in the labor market who are referred to retirement or choose to leave work after the age of 50, and according to some economic estimates, about 500,000 people over the age of 50 have left the labor market in Britain since the beginning of the Corona epidemic.

  • Brexit, as about 250,000 people left the British labor market, fearing a change in immigration laws.

  • A large group of the young class is still studying so far, and this deprives the job market of 300,000 workers, and it is no longer possible to compensate them after Brexit, because a large number of foreign students who were working during their studies returned to their European countries.

What professions are most in demand now?

The sector that needs a large number of workers is the sector of care for the elderly and people with special needs, because it suffers from a shortage of about 55 thousand jobs, and it is the sector most affected by the Corona epidemic and knows a great demand.

There are also a lot of job applications for workers in restaurants, especially chefs. In September, 30 thousand jobs were announced for workers in the restaurant sector, in addition to more than 22 thousand job applications in the field of cleaning and handicrafts.

The cargo and fuel transport sector is still one of the largest sectors that is witnessing a significant shortage in the number of truck drivers.

According to the British Department of Transport, 100,000 qualified drivers are needed to drive fuel trucks, and transport companies offer large salaries to drivers of large trucks of about $ 100,000 a year, and there are fears of a repeat of what happened last year when the fuel crisis hit the country.

The cargo and fuel transport sector is one of the largest sectors that is experiencing a shortage of large truck drivers (Reuters)

What are the government's plans to overcome this deficit?

The government is facing increasing pressure from companies to draw up new plans and amend immigration law for the labor needed by the British labor market, because the current law imposes a strict system of points, obtaining a job offer, mastering a good level of English, and placing significant restrictions on manual workers, artisans and workers in Entertainment venues and drivers.

The government is studying the development of special plans to grant work visas on easy terms to workers in certain sectors, such as drivers of large trucks, workers in care homes, and in nursing, and to grant seasonal visas to workers in the agricultural and tourism sector.

Is it a temporary crisis?

According to a study by the British International Center for Life Hope (ICL), the British labor market will witness a shortage of workers that will reach 2.6 million jobs by 2030, in the sectors of transport, nursing, education and entertainment, which are among the sectors that employ the most workers in Britain.

According to the center, the labor market in Britain is heading towards aging, which means that a large number of its workers will retire, and there is a shortage of young people entering the labor market in search of these jobs, and if the government continues to tighten restrictions on granting work visas, “the The deficit will become large and will deal a severe blow to the economy."