Brexit-backing boss says lack of overseas workers crippling UK economy

euronews.com:

A leading British businessman who backed the UK's departure from the EU has called on the government to make it easier to allow foreign workers into the country to combat labour shortages.

"In respect of immigration, it's definitely not the Brexit that I wanted," said Lord Simon Wolfson, head of the Next retail chain. 

Migration needs to be controlled in such a way that it benefits rather than cripples the economy, he told the BBC.

“We have got people queuing up to come to this country to pick crops that are rotting in fields, to work in warehouses that otherwise wouldn’t be operable, and we’re not letting them in. And we have to take a different approach to economically-productive migration," Lord Wolfson said.

Since new Brexit rules took effect at the start of 2021, EU nationals no longer have the freedom of movement to live and work in the UK. Instead, a new points-based immigration system has been implemented to attract skilled workers.

Latest official figures show that UK unemployment is at its lowest rate since 1974, while job vacancies remain at historically high levels.

"There are lots and lots of vacancies, too many vacancies, it's one of the things that's causing so much inflation," Lord Wolfson added. 

As Euronews has highlighted, Brexit has contributed to chronic labour shortages in Britain across a range of sectors, including hospitality, farming and transport.

A study published in August by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said evidence suggested that UK immigration policy was one of the multiple factors contributing to labour shortages.

It noted that the number of visas issued to people from EU member states in 2021 for work and other reasons (43,000) had plummeted to a fraction of the