Post-Brexit, health and care employers, farmers and builders struggle to fill vacancies while ministers demonise those who could help
A sure sign of a happy country is the eagerness of foreigners to come to live there. One such state is Great Britain. Newcomers are a net benefit to a modern economy and should be welcomed accordingly. Thus, their compliment is returned.
Last year Britain’s ageing population was supplemented by a record net immigration of half a million people. After two years of pandemic retirements and EU departures under Brexit, this immigration came as a salvation to health and care employers, caterers, builders, hauliers and farmers. Yet these businesses are still desperate for more. In England, care is short of 165,000 workers and health needs 130,000, while half of UK building firms are short-staffed and a third of all UK firms say they lack a full complement of staff. Last month the chancellor duly issued a plea for 300,000 over-50s who had retired after lockdown to return to work to fill 1.19m vacancies. It was as if the nation faced defeat and was calling its veterans back into service.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
