A majority of Britons voted for Brexit partly to protect jobs from EU migrants — to keep British jobs for British citizens. But even prime minister Theresa May's pro-Brexit government welcomes EU workers when it comes to jobs such as pouring cappuccinos, mixing cocktails, or serving dinner at restaurants.
Amber Rudd, Ms May's home secretary [interior minister], is examining proposals to create a new class of "barista visas," which will fill these positions in cafes, bars and restaurants after the implementation of Brexit tightens entry into other sectors of labour.
These visas will allow young EU migrants to work in this sector for up to two years, but they will be prevented from claiming health and unemployment benefits.
This class of visa will be modelled on an existing "youth mobility scheme," which permits people between the ages of 18 and 30, from non-EU countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, to work in service industries in the UK for up to two years.
Visa-holders are not allowed to prolong their stay in the country beyond the two-year limit, nor are they allowed to study during the period.
Roughly 40,000 people applied for the youth mobility visa last year. But these numbers will hardly be sufficient to plug the gap that will suddenly emerge once the UK is drained of EU workers.
According to the Office of National Statistics, 2.2 million EU nationals currently live and work in the UK, forming around 7 per cent of the country's total labour force of 30.3 million.
Different sectors of the economy rely on EU migrant labour to varying degrees.
"The hospitality sector is somewhat dependent on EU migrant labour," Rob McNeil, a researcher with the Migration Observatory, an Oxford University institute, told The National. "Currently the food and beverage services industry employs about 150,000 EU-born migrants."
Foreign workers in the industry — including EU-born workers — number 360,000, Mr McNeil said. In comparison, the number of UK-born workers in the industry is roughly 964,000.
These service workers — bar staff, waiters, and others who interact with customers — are part of the larger workforce of the hospitality industry, numbering nearly 5 million people. The sector contributes 10 per cent to the British Gross Domestic Product.
Replacing the 360,000 EU workers will be difficult, in large part, because Britons tend not to apply for these jobs, which are relatively low paid and demand long hours.
Andrea Wareham, the director of human resources at Pret a Manger, a popular chain of cafes, said that only one out of every 50 applicants for its jobs is British. At present, 65 per cent of Pret a Manger's staff in its 330 outlets is from EU nations other than the UK.
"It really is a case of do people want to work in our industry? We are not seen always as a desirable place to work," Ms Wareham told a committee in the House of Lords on March 8, in a discussion about the impact of Brexit. "If I had to fill all our vacancies with British-only people I would not be able to fill them because of the lack of applications."
A starting salary at Pret a Manger is roughly £16,000 a year, which would make it difficult to even pay rent in an expensive city like London.
Ms Wareham also said that British youngsters had to be convinced that starting off with a job at a chain like Pret a Manger should be considered "a success."
To replace EU staff with British staff will need a decade, the British Hospitality Association (BHA) warned. In that period, many restaurants and hotels are likely to go bankrupt, BHA chairman Ufi Ibrahim, predicted.
Even an organisation such as MigrationWatch UK, a lobbying group that ordinarily advocates curtailing immigration into the UK, supports the "barista visa."
"This is just one proposal to help plug a gap that business says will arise after the UK leaves the EU," Alp Mehmet, the vice-chairman of MigrationWatch UK, told The National. "It is not meant to be a complete alternative to the present system. It would not be an avenue to long-term settlement."
But the concept has also drawn acerbic comments from critics who say Mrs May's government rails against immigration but is happy to accept migrant workers in less-skilled jobs that the British won't take. Others ask what's in it for the foreign worker?
Columnist Stephen Bush wrote in the New Statesman magazine on April 17. "Come to Britain to work in a coffee shop. If you get promoted? You can't stay. If you fall in love? You can't stay. If you set up a new business or establish yourself as a writer while working at a coffee shop? You can't stay"
The UK's population is ageing, and the labour market is close to full employment only thanks to migrant workers. The country will need to continue to attract labour — skilled as well as unskilled — to keep its economy in gear.
"You can't persuade people to come here if you are also trying to get those same people to leave," Mr Bush wrote. "For Britain to thrive after Brexit, we're going to have to start being a lot nicer to immigrants."
SSubramanian@thenational.ae
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