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07/12/2017

Labor Shortage Forces British Construction Industry To Request Special Permits For Foreign Worker Post Brexit




Labor Shortage Forces British Construction Industry To Request Special Permits For Foreign Worker Post Brexit
A special permit has been sought by UK housebuilders which would allow the free entry of construction workers from abroad and their recruitment into the segment after the official implementation of Brexit.
 
Morfe then one in five construction workers who are currently working on small land big residential projects in the south-east of England were from other countries, a survey by the Home Builders Federation has shown which also highlights the problem of shortage of laboru that the sector is facing, claimed the Federation.
 
The national average percentage of foreign workers working on construction sites all across the country was stated to be 19.7 percent according to the survey which dramatically rose to touch 56.3% of the total construction segment workers on the functional London sites.
 
Roughly about 217,000 new buildings were added to the housing stock in the country last year by the construction industry even as the building industry has been using a  mix of local and foreign workers over the last four years.
 
Adding to this problem of shortage of labor is an announcement made by Chancellor Philip Hammond in his recent autumn Budget where plans for enhancement of the rate of construction of new homes and a target of 300,000 a year on the average has been taken by the mid-2020s.
 
There is concern among the HFB that the current labor force could be at risk because in the past 12 months has witnessed the largest fall in the net migration figures since records began according to last month's figures.
 
The construction industry has also stressed that is critical that they prepare for a post Brexit scenario and it has jointly requested the government to ensure that it should make arrangements for special permits or visas so that foreign construction workers can be recruited easily post 2019 which would ultimately help the industry to fulfill the new housing plans and demand of the government.
 
7.3% of builders surveyed were from Romania, followed by Poland with 1.5% of workers, Lithuania with 1.3%, Ireland with 1.25%, Bulgaria on 0.9% and India with 0.6%, the study found.
 
"We needed evidence that demonstrates housebuilding should be treated as a special case; hopefully this quite clearly demonstrates that it is a special case and heavily reliant on EU labour," The federation's spokesman Steve Turner, told The Guardian.
 
The industry’s access to foreign construction workers is "absolutely essential" despite the fact that the construction industry has been heavily investing in training of young people, the HBF's executive chairman, Stewart Baseley said.
 
(Source:www.digitallook.com)

Christopher J. Mitchell

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