Fruit picking and farming recruitment crisis
For the past couple of weeks the UK has seen a glimpse of the luscious summer weather starting to emerge. This warmer weather signifies the start of picking season, as sweet and satisfying British grown fruits usually begin to fill the supermarket shelves.
However, the difficult and challenging times we’re currently facing, due to the Coronavirus has caused havoc amongst UK farmers as they desperately search for people to help get their stock from the ground and into UK supermarkets.
The outbreak of Coronavirus has led to a surge in demand for supermarkets. UK food suppliers struggled to fill empty shelves during the first few weeks of the virus outbreak, as the British public began to ‘panic buy’ toilet rolls, pasta and tinned foods. The UK government were quick to respond to this sudden wave of panic-buying, by reassuring the public that there is no shortage of supplies and measures will be put in place to ensure the public stop bulk-buying goods.
Nevertheless, we may begin to witness the empty shelves reappear in our local supermarket, but this time in the fruit and veg isles as the British farming industry struggle to fill the 90,000 fruit and vegetable picking jobs which are currently required.
Farmers continue to appeal for more British workers to sign-up for farming jobs, during the UK lock down. So far over 32,000 people have applied for a farming role, but with only 4,000 people opting for an interview, the UK farming sector has been forced to fly Romanian fruit pickers into the UK amid the farming sector crisis, in order to tackle staff shortages.
At Absolute Personnel we are able to support farmers and fruit growers looking for employees during these difficult times. We are well versed in providing temporary workers at short notice and have a range of willing employees ready to turn their hand to fruit picking and farming roles. With lots of flexibility around farming work, we believe these available jobs will appeal to many of our job seekers, considering the current UK lock down situation.
By helping farmers and fruit growers find quality candidates and employees in the UK, Absolute Personnel can prevent farmers from going to the expense of flying eastern European workers over to the UK and providing accommodation in order to tackle their staff shortages.
Failure to fill these required job roles could lead to the majority of fresh fruits and vegetables being left to rot in UK fields. For more information on how we can help, please contact the Absolute Personnel team on 01743 461 239.
