Seasonal labour: growers feeling the strain:Investment confidence is falling as growers press Government for more clarity

摘要

During a debate at last month's Fruit Focus trade show in Kent, senior industry figures painted a bleak picture of an increasingly difficult seasonal labour market that is already impacting on levels of investment.Revealing the results of its monthly grower survey for June, NFU horticulture adviser Amy Gray said that while the share of respondents experiencing a labour shortfall has dropped slightly—from 17 per cent in May to 13 per cent in June—"insufficient" has become growers' most common evaluation of labour supply. "There has also been an almost linear reduction in returnees, to just 31 per cent in June," she added. "They are an important source of labour, being experienced and reliable."Attrition, by contrast, has been higher than in previous seasons, she noted, with the share of workers not turning up, not staying or being fired standing at 18 per cent, compared with 10 per cent in 2014, which Gray described as "worrying", adding: "Workers don't communicate their reasons for leaving."