A survey of 1,400 UK businesses by the BCC in September found that 40% of respondents had employees from other EU countries, and 38% believed future restrictions would have a negative impact.
Writing in the Guardian today, BCC director general Adam Marshall urged the government to avoid “draconian and damaging” measures on visas or work permits that could deter migrant workers from coming to the country after it leaves the EU.
He wrote: “A crisis is looming on the business parks, industrial estates, construction projects and farms of Britain. As the Brexit process dominates politics, businesses are struggling to fill vacancies and to find the people they need in order to grow.
“A combination of record employment levels for UK-born people, significant falls in immigration following the devaluation of sterling in 2016, and the total absence of job candidates in some areas is biting hard.
“Amid all the uncertainty our businesses and communities face, the UK government must act swiftly to define an open and responsive immigration policy.”
Marshall said that businesses were prepared for increased regulations on immigration, but he appealed to the government to avoid “pulling up the drawbridge” by introducing a system that ensures those with the ability and entitlement to work can still enter the country.
In the BPIF’s latest Printing Outlook, published at the start of February, lack of access to skilled labour had risen to be respondents’ third-highest concern, with 32% of printers making it a high priority.
“Before the Brexit vote, access to labour did not really feature in the Outlook but it has risen strongly over the past year or so,” said BPIF chief executive Charles Jarrold. “Print companies tend to rely on European migrant labour and speak very highly of it.
“A lot of print firms work in areas of generally high employment already, and have a clear requirement for skilled, motivated people that migrant labour helps to fulfil. We can fill some of these gaps with training, which the government’s apprenticeship levy is helping with, but it will not fully compensate for what might happen if free movement is reduced.
“Hopeful outlooks on Brexit have declined among print companies since the vote and a lot of that comes down to a lack of certainty – will we take a chance on hard Brexit or find our way to something softer? The answer is we don’t know and the government and cabinet do not appear united on the issue which is causing difficulty.”
On the BPIF’s post-Brexit barometer, a feature introduced to the Outlook since the vote, confidence in UK economic outlook currently stands at -33 among print companies on a scale that ranges for 50 (very confident) to -50 (very unconfident).
Patrick Headley, chief executive of direct mail specialist Go Inspire Group, said: “It is very valuable to have access to workers who are happy to work for a living wage, especially as prices go up in our industry. Our migrant workers all do a valuable job for our business.
“But no one knows what 2018 has in store for us with Brexit and GDPR, to name a few things, and uncertainty is never great. We cannot know how well Brexit is going to go until we get that certainty – we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
