At QCR Motors, a bodywork specialist in Nuneaton, all notices in the factory are written in Polish as well as English. To the south-west, in Plymouth, cab company TaxiFast now recruits 25 per cent of its 400-strong workforce from the Czech Republic.
All over Britain, employers are asking migrants, mainly from the A8 (the eight poorest of the 10 countries that joined the EU in May 2004), to join their workforces. Local skills shortages and the prospect of cheap labour are the main reasons why. A report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, published in June this year, found that 85 per cent of 715 employers surveyed had experienced recruitment difficulties over the past year, and nearly 40 per cent had turned to non-UK residents.
Estimates of the numbers of migrant workers in the UK vary widely. Figures for A8 eastern Europeans coming to work in Britain since 2004 may be 50 per cent higher than the Home Office’s official count of 427,000, according to a recent BBC Newsnight survey—and dramatically more than the 13,000 a year originally forecast by the government.
And the supply is not likely to diminish, with Bulgaria and Romania joining the EU next year. Of the thousands of people coming to Britain, the Newsnight survey found that 40 per cent of Polish workers plan to stay at least two years, and one in seven has decided to move to the UK permanently. (One leading think tank, the Centre for Economic and Business Research, has said the influx of Poles resembles “adding the consumer demand of Liverpool to the economy.”)
Demand for migrants will remain high, particularly in the construction sector where areas such as eastern England are crying out for the skills to make development projects a reality. Kate McFarlane, senior executive at the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), explains: “The region has full employment, yet the East of England plan, currently at the government committee stage, requires around half a million new homes in the area, with all the necessary new infrastructure.”
Maxwell Drummond, an international search firm specialising in the oil and construction industries, sees eastern Europe as one of the answers to the skills problem. Its CEO, Andrew Macdonald, says: “Our engineering talent is being exported to the US and, with the 2012 Olympics involving huge construction projects in a tight time-frame, we desperately need more professionals. Maxwell Drummond has a full-time analyst looking at establishing relationships with companies and service providers in Poland and Romania to supply us with candidates for our clients.”
The effect of migrants on some businesses is significant. The east of England lacks skills in sectors such as agriculture and food-processing as well as construction. McFarlane says: “Several companies tell us that without these workers they’d be out of business. They bring flexibility by working unpopular shifts, they are often more productive than locals, and they raise awareness of different cultures.”
But employing migrants is hardly plain-sailing. There are additional legal risks. The law requires employers to make sure applicants’ papers are in order before taking them on (see box at right). And health and safety can become an issue. As Andrew Macdonald warns: “Eastern Europe lacks our level of obsession, and some countries have never had significant standards of safety.”
Minimising safety risks depends on solving another problem: the language barrier. Prospective employers have to think about how they are going to communicate with, and train, staff whose knowledge of English might be rudimentary.
Recruitment agencies can help. For example, Europeople, a specialist in sourcing staff from eastern Europe, provides a support system. Managing director John Davison explains: “Initially, we interview candidates in their own language to get a feel for what their experiences are, then we provide support on an ongoing basis and they can call us at any time. We have Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish staff in the office to explain practicalities like payroll systems, and recruits spend a day at the local college to learn how things work over here.”
Europeople staff also hold on-site induction courses to talk through health and safety procedures, so that “nothing is lost in the translation,” says Davison. Managing this transition to the British workplace can help combat resistance from existing staff.
The words “migrant” and “exploitation” often appear in the same sentence. Media stories have highlighted unscrupulous employers who exploit migrant workers’ lack of knowledge of the labour market by paying below the minimum wage or less than the market rate, knowing that many migrants are desperate to work here. The TUC recently found an East Anglian firm of vegetable packers paying Polish tractor drivers the minimum wage of £4.85, well below the standard qualified workers’ rate of £6 per hour.
Linked to low pay is the issue of low status. Although many migrants work in their own fields—388 Polish dentists found employment in the UK in 2005—others downgrade. According to the Keystone Development Trust, a Norfolk-based charity, 12 per cent of migrants who’ve entered the UK since January 2004 have university degrees but many take menial jobs in order to survive. The EEDA interviewed doctors who are currently carrot pickers, and a significant number of qualified nurses are working as care assistants.
It’s a situation that makes little economic sense. Sean Bamford, policy officer at the TUC, says: “Clearly, many migrants are working below their real skills level, which is a waste of their talents and also wasteful for the UK economy.”
The response to these kinds of issues varies among employers. Some, like Barrett Steel Stockists in Bradford (see case study, below) appear to take a philanthropic approach, while others are more pragmatic. Much depends on the motives for looking east.
The reality is that some small companies employ migrants not just because they can’t recruit locally but because they can cut labour costs. “Clients like BMW and Ford now send their major contracts to Poland and India because of the competitive prices,” says Frank Hook, founder and director of QCR Motors. “To stay in business, we decided to bring Polish workers over here.”
Hook has recruited 16 migrants through Europeople. “We pay the agency £7.80 an hour per employee, which compares with £15 an hour for our local people who are doing the same job. We don’t pay them holiday or sickness pay, so we save a colossal amount on labour costs. When I shut down the factory the local workers are producing nothing, yet they’re paid time plus 20 per cent when they’re on holiday.”
Hook is bullish at the suggestion that paying below the market rate will erode the general wage level. “We can’t lower the wages of people who’ve been working for us for 20-30 years. They know that their skills are in short supply so they’re demanding and getting the top rates. When they retire we hope that we will have trained our migrant workers to the skills level that we need so we can take advantage of these lower rates, because I can’t see them staying this low for long.”
Unlike David Barker, Hook sees his responsibilities to his workers as ending at the factory door. “When they clock on I provide a happy working life. I’m not remotely interested in their existence outside my workshops.”
Whatever their approach, firms seem to agree on one thing: migrants are a valuable resource. A report by the Institute for Employment Studies, Employers’ Use of Migrant Labour, found that employers praised the work ethic, attitude and reliability of migrants and, in some cases, even preferred them to local workers. As Hook says: “Our Polish lads are a joy to employ. They’re helpful, industrious and respectful.”
Recruitment risks
The government is clamping down on companies that employ people who have no right to work in the UK. The Home secretary John Reid threatened, in July, to disqualify company directors caught more than once employing illegal immigrants. Home Office proposals—put forward in Reid’s document, Rebuilding Confidence in our Immigration System, also recommend the seizing of profits made from work done by illegal immigrants.
To stay on the right side of the law, companies must obtain, check and copy certain documents belonging to the migrant worker. They must also ensure that anyone from one of the A8 countries registers with the Worker Registration Scheme—unless they are exempt—and they must keep a copy of the certificate.
The process is not as onerous as it sounds; the Home Office publishes an online guide to the rules (www.employing migrantworkers.org.uk).
More problematic is ensuring the candidate is up to the job. Marcia Roberts, deputy chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), warns that checking migrants’ references and qualifications is not easy. But, she says: “The status of foreign qualifications can be checked through the National Recognition Information Centre.”
Risks can also be reduced by using a third party. “Our clients demand a due diligence process so we do a full police check to make sure new staff are not only competent but also have a clean record,” says Andrew Macdonald of search firm Maxwell Drummond.
Case study: Barrett Steel Services
David Barker, warehouse manager at Barrett Steel Services, a Bradford steel stockist, turned to migrants to fill gaps in his workforce. “Our works are cold in winter, stifling in summer, noisy and dusty. It’s hard to recruit locally, and I’d spoken to other companies which strongly recommended migrant staff,” he explains.
He recruited four Poles and says he’s glad that he did. He found that resistance from existing staff was short-lived. “They were initially wary but they soon changed, and were anxious to make sure we were paying their Polish workmates the same rates,” claims Barker.
He expected language to be a problem, but found ways to deal with it. “The CVs said their English was intermediate, but we find that those who can’t speak English are easiest to train. Trying to explain how to operate the machines is difficult without a good grasp of the language, so the operator demonstrates what to do and the trainee copies it.”
He believes his responsibilities as an employer extend outside the workplace. “Other migrants are put in caravans and campsites but I wanted to find them decent accommodation and ensure they could cope with everyday living.”
For him, parity on pay on conditions makes sense. “There’s a huge learning curve for foreign workers, and it takes four months to bring an employee up to our standards.
We thought they might then leave, but we offer the same benefits as similar employers so they’re not tempted. They seem to have absolute commitment, and two out of four are bringing their families over next year."
