Share | the shortage of labor in the UK food supply chain is caused by "brexit"?

British food manufacturers have been in trouble all summer: there is a lack of workers to harvest vegetables and distribute them to shopping malls. Some industry insiders attribute this to the impact of leaving the EU.

CNN quoted Ian Brown, vice president of the East Scottish Growers Association, as saying on the 12th: "we don't have enough workers to harvest vegetables, which means that these crops will be wasted."

Although many countries in the world suffered food shortages during the COVID-19 period, Brown believed that a unique reason made the situation in Britain more difficult, that is, "off Europe".

He said that both the harvesting and distribution of fresh vegetables were seriously affected by the shortage of workers.

In the past few months of each year, some seasonal workers from Romania and Bulgaria harvested vegetables in the UK. Now there is a shortage of such workers. Brown said that this means that 10% to 15% of the crops he grows are wasted, worth about 200000 pounds (about 1.79 million yuan).

The most pressing problem may be the shortage of truck drivers. According to the data provided by the British Logistics Association, the gap of truck drivers in the UK may be between 90000 and 120000. Although brexit is not the only reason for the shortage of drivers, the inability to easily hire continental European drivers is a headache for the British food industry.

CNN reported that these labor gaps indicate that British enterprises will suffer losses and "empty" food shelves before Christmas.

The owners of several large supermarket chains in Britain described the food shortage as unprecedented. One of them told the times that the amount of food was "worse than I've ever seen" and that Christmas shelves might be empty because of a shortage of drivers.

Reuters reported last week that Britain will fall out of Germany's top ten trading partners this year for the first time since 1950 due to the impact of trade barriers related to "brexit". According to the data released by the British National Bureau of statistics in the first half of this year, since Britain officially withdrew from the European single market and the EU customs union on January 1 this year, the volume of bilateral trade between Britain and Europe has decreased significantly.

According to the data provided by the British National Bureau of statistics, Britain's GDP nearly stopped growing in July, partly due to poor supply chain and labor shortage.

Source: Xinhuanet

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