As the holiday season approaches, producers of Christmas trees, turkeys, pork and toy stores fear they will not be able to meet demand due to a lack of staff and drivers.
In the heart of the English countryside, on the farm “Flower Farm”, there is anxiety. Patrick Deeley still doesn’t have enough manpower to deliver his Christmas turkeys. “I’m not sure I can hire enough staff to do the necessary work before Christmas. We will be under a lot of pressure,” the Surrey farmer told AFP.
Patrick should now be able to count on the presence of 12 seasonal workers by mid-December to help him pack, prepare and deliver his birds before Christmas. For more than 15 years, he has been recruiting workers from Europe. He has not been able to hire any this year. Six hundred white turkeys surround him as he enters the 30-meter wooden building to feed them.
“Brexit is an important factor, in my opinion, because one of the consequences is a huge loss of labor,” he explained.
The Brexit, which came into force on 1 January, is now making it harder for European Union workers to enter the UK because they already need visas.
Faced with labor shortages in the poultry sector, some farmers have increased the number of published recruitment notices. But applications are extremely rare.
“This is not the most attractive job in the world. It’s hard work, it’s farming, you have to work seven days a week, “said Mark Gorton, who raises turkeys in Norfolk, East Anglia and has no seasonal workers so far, while hiring around 300-400 each year.
“We have six weeks left to start preparing the turkeys for the Christmas bazaar, and we don’t have a workforce at the moment,” he added, visibly worried.
Due to labor shortages, some farmers have been forced to produce fewer turkeys this year, and supermarkets have cut orders.
“The number of turkeys has been drastically reduced. This is a problem all over the country, it doesn’t matter if you have ten turkeys or 20,000 turkeys, the problem is basically the same – there is a huge shortage of skilled labor, “said Patrick.
Faced with this situation, turkey lovers order from before. Most of the 40 farms united in the “Association of Fresh Turkeys from Traditional Farms” report a significant increase in orders compared to the same period last year. Some farms even say they have received five times as many orders.
This also leads to a risk of rising turkey prices. “I think, unfortunately, people will see rising product prices,” Patrick predicted.
Poultry farming is a sector of the British economy for which the government has decided to issue 5,500 work visas, valid until 31 December, to attract seasonal workers. But farmers fear this will not change the situation.
“Would I leave my home, my country, my job, my security to come and help a country that told me it didn’t want me anymore?” I wouldn’t do that“, said Patrick, who said foreign workers already felt” unwanted. “
As Christmas approaches, poultry farmers seem resigned: “I’m going to have to convince the people who work for me that we’ll have to work 18-19 hours a day instead of 16,” Patrick explains.
The poultry sector is one of the most affected by labor shortages. But he is far from the only one. As the holiday season approaches, Christmas tree, pork and toy stores also fear they will not be able to meet demand due to a lack of staff and drivers.
–
