Butchers excluded from Shortage Occupation List
The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) has expressed disappointment that the Government’s advisory body on labour has rejected calls to add butchers and poultry dressers to the Shortage Occupation List (SOL).
The Migration Advisory Committee have just published the outcome of its Review of the Shortage Occupation List, concluding that adding butchers to the list would simply ’embed poor conditions in the industry further.
Adding butchers to the SOL would have, among other things, reduced the salary threshold to just under £21,000 for recruiting butchers. Meat and farming industry bodies have called for butchers to be included on the list, highlighting the problems for the pig sector, in particular, caused by butcher shortages since we left the EU.
In its report, the MAC said stakeholders who called for butchers to be included on the list reported that employers have historically relied on EU workers ‘as working conditions are unattractive and deter domestic labour from entering the occupation, in addition to lacking the required skills’.
“Generally, processing locations have small local labour markets to select from,” it added. “Stakeholders evidenced attempts to alleviate shortage for this occupation by upskilling domestic labour through offering apprenticeships, improved salaries, improved flexibility where possible, and improved working conditions.
“Notably however, issues with working conditions and pay have been important in leading workers to leaving
the occupation for other job roles.”
It added that visa statistics show Butchers are large users of the skilled worker route, meaning employers ‘can continue to use the immigration system to fill vacancies where necessary’.
By ALISTAIR DRIVER / PIG WORLD
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