The United Kingdom (UK), hoping to ease a supply-chain crisis and forestall a Christmas logjam, will grant temporary visas to more than 10,000 foreigners to work as truck drivers and in the food industry, the Washington Post has reported.
The move is a departure for the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. After exiting the European Union in January 2020, Britain overhauled its immigration system to end what it called an over-reliance on cheap, low-skilled foreign labour. Officials said they wanted to develop the domestic workforce, and employers needed to adjust and invest more in technology and automation.
But in a U-turn announced late Saturday, officials said they would allow 5,000 temporary visas for truck drivers and 5,500 for poultry workers through Christmas Eve. Britain is grappling with a string of shortages: Supermarkets are running out of goods, and restaurant chains such as McDonald’s and KFC are cutting items from their menus.
The truck driver shortage is particularly acute. Britain’s Road Haulage Association estimates the country needs about 100,000 drivers.
The crisis spread over the weekend to gas stations, resulting in long lines at the pump.
BP said that about 30 per cent of its 1,200 sites in Britain had run out of the two main grades of fuel on Sunday.
Some stations said they were rationing fuel.
The gloom was lifted, at least momentarily when the BBC sent a reporter to a gas station to cover the crisis. His name? Phil McCann.
Business groups said the emergency visas were too little, too late. For months, businesses have warned of labour shortages across the economy and urged the government to relax its rules for some sectors to make it easier to recruit workers from the European Union.
But the government resisted the calls, saying an influx of cheaper foreign labour could reduce companies’ incentives to improve pay and working conditions for British workers.
Andrew Marr, a BBC presenter, asked Transport Secretary Grant Shapps about the government’s reversal on his Sunday morning show: “On Friday, you said you weren’t going to bring in foreign workers, and now you are.”
“I said we will do whatever we need to do to make sure that things flow in this country,” Shapps said in response. “But we don’t want to be relying on overseas labour in the longer run, which is why this is limited to Christmas.”
Officials will be keen to avoid scenes from 2000 when a fuel-related crisis nearly brought the economy to gridlock. It was the only time during Tony Blair’s first term that his popularity ratings took a serious hit.
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