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Hiring willing crop pickers from overseas doesn't sound like it would do anything for productivity but it can raise it if it allows those who could be more productive than picking crops to move into other jobs. The gains-from-trade arguments apply just as much to trading labour across borders as goods and services and capital.
That's why it's good that once Brexit is complete, companies will find it much harder to import cheap eastern European labour. Instead they will have to improve working conditions and/or offer better pay to encourage native British workers to work for them.
I don't think you will get better pay for the low skill jobs. Where jobs are low skill the chances are that the product is price sensitive and there is a greater drive to keep down costs. Workers will get minimum wage.
What will happen though is that rather than these jobs being filled by overseas recruitment they will go to the local job centres where people will be forced to take them or lose benefits.
I don't think you will get better pay for the low skill jobs. Where jobs are low skill the chances are that the product is price sensitive and there is a greater drive to keep down costs. Workers will get minimum wage.
What will happen though is that rather than these jobs being filled by overseas recruitment they will go to the local job centres where people will be forced to take them or lose benefits.
What will happen though is that rather than these jobs being filled by overseas recruitment they will go to the local job centres where people will be forced to take them or lose benefits.
IMO, if they got the unemployed to do these low paid jobs and still gave them a percentage of their benefits it could give them an incentive to work and earn more than migrant workers. The same system would not apply to anyone from outside of the U.K. The unemployed willing to work would be open to opportunities if they arise.
I know someone who has been on the dole for about as long as I can remember. He has no incentive to work all the time he has his rent, council tax and a few pounds in his pocket. If he can get a bit of cash in hand, that's his beer money.
Hiring willing crop pickers from overseas doesn't sound like it would do anything for productivity but it can raise it if it allows those who could be more productive than picking crops to move into other jobs. The gains-from-trade arguments apply just as much to trading labour across borders as goods and services and capital.
But we have willing strawberry pickers.
They walk into Leominster every Saturday morning to do their shopping.
Remove freedom of movement and how is S and A going to fill those jobs? if the costs go up then how is S and A going to compete? I know that the people who voted Leave in Hereford aren't going to do it...
They only brought in the Poles because no one (for quite some time) in this country was willing to do the job.
But we have willing strawberry pickers.
They walk into Leominster every Saturday morning to do their shopping.
Remove freedom of movement and how is S and A going to fill those jobs? if the costs go up then how is S and A going to compete? I know that the people who voted Leave in Hereford aren't going to do it...
They only brought in the Poles because no one (for quite some time) in this country was willing to do the job.
If there's enough time then S and A will be able to go through the immigration hoops and recruit from overseas. Sure there will be additional cost and red tape but Brexit removes red tape and makes the UK more efficient
If there isn't them S and A will have to pay whatever the going rate is, presumably significantly higher. It's OK though, with restrictions on fruit imports, S and A can still compete, albeit at a higher price.
The Great British consumer will be happy to pay more for food because we'll have got our country back
If there's enough time then S and A will be able to go through the immigration hoops and recruit from overseas. Sure there will be additional cost and red tape but Brexit removes red tape and makes the UK more efficient
If there isn't them S and A will have to pay whatever the going rate is, presumably significantly higher. It's OK though, with restrictions on fruit imports, S and A can still compete, albeit at a higher price.
The Great British consumer will be happy to pay more for food because we'll have got our country back
But we have willing strawberry pickers.
They walk into Leominster every Saturday morning to do their shopping.
Remove freedom of movement and how is S and A going to fill those jobs? if the costs go up then how is S and A going to compete? I know that the people who voted Leave in Hereford aren't going to do it...
I don't know what this is saying, who is S and A? I am saying that hiring crop pickers can raise overall productivity. Just probably not crop picking productivity.
We need some high tech robot fruit picking machinery and/or different ways of growing fruit that makes it easier to pick. Armies of low-paid workers grafting away in open fields or poly tunnels in all weathers is so last century.
If the fruit can be picked and graded/chilled/sorted and partially packed by the robots so much the better: this will result in higher quality and more consistent quality produce - which supermarkets and consumers will be prepared to pay a premium for.
We need some high tech robot fruit picking machinery and/or different ways of growing fruit that makes it easier to pick. Armies of low-paid workers grafting away in open fields or poly tunnels in all weathers is so last century.
If the fruit can be picked and graded/chilled/sorted and partially packed by the robots so much the better: this will result in higher quality and more consistent quality produce - which supermarkets and consumers will be prepared to pay a premium for.
I don't know what this is saying, who is S and A? I am saying that hiring crop pickers can raise overall productivity. Just probably not crop picking productivity.
They produce lots of strawberries round where I live, and employ lots of casual labour to do the picking. That labour, many moons ago, was students on holiday. That hasn't happened in a loooong time, which is why they took to bringing in Polish workers.
We need some high tech robot fruit picking machinery and/or different ways of growing fruit that makes it easier to pick. Armies of low-paid workers grafting away in open fields or poly tunnels in all weathers is so last century.
The Japanese have only just come up with one, and it's not cheap, and it's not all that reliable. Ensuring they don't squish the soft fruit is a major issue.
Strawberries are (should be) a seasonal fruit in the UK, idle robots probably can't be so easily used (as temporary unskilled labour) for something else the rest of the year. If the strawberries are grown in polytunnels then their carbon footprint will be bigger than ones grown in Spain. But they will have less food miles, which works the other way. Then there's the water footprint; Spain doesn't have so much of that so Spain exporting virtual water to the UK in the form of strawberries makes little hydrological sense.
What a dilemma. If only there was some all-in metric with which to judge which are the best strawberries to buy. Like a market price or something. Except that's distorted by fuel subsidies, inadequate water pricing, uneven worker compensation and protection, populist Brexit agitprop, EU agricultural meddling. . . .
I think I need a super-computer and a hundred data minions to help with this.
Those possible productivity increases really won't materialise for things like crop pickers.
I suppose the likes of S and A could turn to some strawberry picking robot...
It will be interesting to see if there is any change of attitude among British unemployed so that they start to fill this kind of job instead of the regular, and it seems reliable EU pickers.
We need some high tech robot fruit picking machinery and/or different ways of growing fruit that makes it easier to pick. Armies of low-paid workers grafting away in open fields or poly tunnels in all weathers is so last century.
If the fruit can be picked and graded/chilled/sorted and partially packed by the robots so much the better: this will result in higher quality and more consistent quality produce - which supermarkets and consumers will be prepared to pay a premium for.
One of the things that UK consumers, and the supermarket oligarchy need to stop doing is believing that aesthetically perfect food is better.
We waste staggering amounts of food in the UK because supermarkets tell growers that it doesn't meet the right standard. Comparing a tomato from the shelves of a supermarket in the UK with it's counterpart in France, or Italy or Spain, is an object lesson in "appearances can be deceptive" Fruit & Veg from the UK looks nice, but tastes bland, almost always.
"Seasonality" has long since gone by the wayside, you can get anything you want, all year around at reasonable prices. I am not so sure that's a good thing.
In 20 or 30 years from now fruit harvesting will be mostly automated, especially for such a large cash crop as strawberries. In the shorter term if companies can't call on cheap labour to do the work, they will be forced to increase pay.
It's a bit like the old joke.
"Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?"
"Well yes of course"
"Would you sleep with me for a pound?"
"Of course not, what kind of person do you think I am?"
"We've already established that, now we're haggling over price."
There's plenty of people here that will do low skilled work, but won't unless the price is right.
It will be interesting to see if there is any change of attitude among British unemployed so that they start to fill this kind of job instead of the regular, and it seems reliable EU pickers.
It would probably need some kind of extra incentive, like losing benefits if you don't go and so some work if it's available. Maybe even gaining extra benefits if you get off your lazy arse and go do some work.
As well the GBP:EUR exchange rate could well have an impact.
If a Polish worker comes here and earns GBP and then also gets a favourable exchange rate to send money home, then that's win win for them.
If the rate gets low enough whereby the Polish worker could do similar work at home for a similar income, then they'd be more inclined to work in Poland.
It's a bit of both. Supermarkets tie growers to exclusive contracts, then reject a lot of food that's sub standard. Growers get left with a lot of food that's perfectly edible, that they could sell to soup manufacturers say, but can't because contracts.
People are naturally inclined to by stuff that looks nicer, because we live in a society that values looks above everything else. Consumers leave the less good looking stuff on the shelves, so it ends up in the bin anyway. It all gets a bit catch-22.
There are some places selling "seconds". I know the veg company we use at work sells boxes of mixed produce that's not A grade for a lot less than normal.
I hope that catches on. One of the best ways to reduce global CO2 emissions is to stop transporting food as much and to buy more locally grown seasonal produce.
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