Alarm bells ring for business at thought of losing their skilled foreign workers
Without them, businesses will not work at full capacity, and the economy suffers. In some cases, business will fail.”
It has already been felt in agriculture: just one in 400 seasonal workers in Scottish fruit farms is British, prompting growers to travel to Moldova last summer to lure workers with free flights, amid fears of crops being left to rot.
There are also mounting concerns in tourism – a sector responsible for one in every 12 jobs in Scotland – and Scotland’s food and drink sector, where a national strategy to double its value by 2030 hinges on a reliable workforce.
Scottish Government Minister for Europe Ben Macpherson says the country’s ageing population and low birth rate, plus its range of sectors dependant on migrant workers, boost the case for devolved immigration powers and the introduction of a Scottish visa.
He said: “It’s not about a separate system or a border at Berwick, but flexibility within the system so individuals can obtain a visa to allow them to work in Scotland. The value of EU citizens is huge, not just in how they enrich society and community, but our analysis shows each EU citizen contributes £10,400 to government revenue and £34,400 to GDP each year. There’s real anxiety among EU migrants. That’s unfortunate and unjust.”
According to Scottish Government figures, lower migration would cost the economy almost £5billion a year, reducing the nation’s real Gross Domestic Product by 4.5%. A “worst case scenario”, where migration is reduced to tens of thousands, could cost to £10bn per year by 2040.
David Watt, executive director of the Institute of Directors Scotland, said: “There isn’t an industry that doesn’t have significant input from migrants. We need migrants to grow businesses and to staff businesses. It’s a real concern. The biggest implication of Brexit is the potential damage to the population. Our population isn’t growing nearly as fast as we need it to and our working age population will fall.”
Business is booming at Kingsmills Hotel in Inverness, where occupancy for the year is expected to exceed 90% and a new 47-bedroom hotel is on the cards.
It should be an upbeat time. Instead, a question mark hangs over recruitment and the futures of the hotel’s 51 EU migrants who make up nearly 30% of its employees.
“We used to get a lot of CVS and applications, many from Eastern Europeans keen to work in a vibrant city,” says general manager Craig Ewan.
“But we’re now having to go and actively recruit. With unemployment in the local area at just under 1%, it’s really challenging and takes time and effort.
It’s not just the threatened drift of migrants leaving Scotland to return home that’s creating concern.
Some, like Dorota Peszkowska, 28, and Noelia Martinez, 36, who came to Scotland from Madrid 13 years ago, will be taking their British partners with them.
The irony of having supported her Philippine-born partner, Sherwin Malinao, 40, through his British citizenship application so he could continue to work for the NHS, only to now face justifying her own right to remain, is not lost on Martinez.
“Now I’m the one who doesn’t know if they can stay or not,” says the self-employed translator and journalist.
“There’s a feeling of being unwanted in a country that I have contributed to. It’s difficult to make plans, I’ve lost trust and I’m worried.”
It’s difficult to make plans, I’ve lost trust and I’m worried