The UK construction
industry is asking its highly valued EU workers, who might be travelling home
for Christmas, to please come back after the Christmas break, according to the
Federation of Master Builders (FMB).
The FMB has
published some new research which focusses on how the bosses of small and
medium-sized (SME) construction firms view their EU workers and the key
findings include:
- 85% of construction SME
employers that employ EU workers say that these workers are important in
allowing their business to maintain and expand its workforce;
- 76% of these firms say it
would have a negative impact on the health of their business if any of the
EU workers they employ returned to their country of origin, now or
post-Brexit;
- 94% of firms describe the
quality of EU workers they employ as ‘good’ or ‘very good’.
Brian
Berry, Chief Executive of the FMB, said: “Our latest research shows that EU
workers are vital to the success of the UK construction industry and our
message to these individuals is clear – you are highly valued and we need you.
"Christmas is
now upon us and there’s a risk that those EU migrant workers who go home to
their home countries for the festive period might not come back. With Brexit
looming large on the horizon, EU workers in the UK are facing high levels of
uncertainty over their future.
"Furthermore,
since the depreciation of sterling in the summer of 2016, their wages aren’t
worth as much as they were previously. Construction employers are genuinely
concerned that this mixture of uncertainty about the future and less money in
their pockets will make the UK a much less attractive proposition that it was
pre-referendum.
“Ministers haven’t
done enough to reassure EU workers that they have a future in the UK. In our
joint ‘Construction
Industry Brexit Manifesto’, published at the end of November, seven of the
major trade bodies have called on the Government to embark upon a
communications campaign that makes clear to our EU workers that they’ll have no
serious impediments to gaining settled status.
"Indeed, both
the Government and the industry need to do all that they can to put a positive
message across.
"In the medium
term, the construction industry can and should do more to attract and train a
greater proportion of domestic workers. However, such is the extent of the
current construction skills shortages, we’ll continue to need to draw upon a
high number of EU migrant workers post-Brexit if the Government wants to meet
its target for new homes and infrastructure projects.”
