UKHospitality has described the dramatic fall in EU migration revealed this week as “an alarming portent of possible disaster for the hospitality sector”.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that net migration from the EU for the year ending December 2017 stood at around 100,000, the lowest level since 2013 in what is the first full year’s data since the Brexit vote.
The ONS said the estimated number of EU citizens coming to the UK looking for work continued to decrease over the last year while the number coming to the UK for a definite job has remained stable.
UKHospitality, which represents pubs, restaurants and hotels, said the fact the squeeze in migrant numbers was being felt most acutely in lower-skilled labour, which makes up the bulk of the sector’s workforce, was “particularly distressing”.
“The hospitality labour pool is shrinking and around a quarter of employers in the sector already say they are struggling to fill vacancies,” said UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls. “The hospitality sector relies heavily on EU migrants to fill many of its vacancies and should this trend continue, businesses are likely to struggle to keep up with projected growth.”
In the aftermath of the EU referendum result, the heads of over 30 representative bodies sent a letter to the UK government warning that the food chain would face collapse without continued access to a reservoir of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour from the EU.
