Biggest foreign-worker exodus since WWII adds to Britain s woes
Andrew Atkinson, Bloomberg
FacebookTwitterEmail
Commuters cross London Bridge in the City of London on Feb. 15, 2021.Bloomberg photo by Jason Alden.
Foreign workers are leaving Britain at the fastest pace since World War II, presenting a challenge to an economy already roiled by Brexit and the coronavirus.
London alone has lost 700,000 people over the last year, recent research suggests. The implications are profound for the Treasury, landlords and the chances for a recovery from the worst slump in three centuries. The risk is that people don t come back, so we have skill and labor shortages and we lose some output, growth and tax revenue permanently, said Jonathan Portes, a King s College London economics professor who estimates well over 1 million foreign-born workers may have left. Given how migration has driven economic growth, particularly in London, that could be bad news.
Some 9% of business leaders expect their companies not to continue if Chancellor Rishi Sunak does not announce further support in the Budget next week (Wednesday 3 March), according to research.
The CGA Business Leaders’ Survey 2021, which was sponsored by Fourth and conducted in collaboration with UKHospitality, the British Beer & Pub Association and the British Institute of Innkeeping included 726 respondents.
Additionally, just over a third (37%) stated their businesses could return to profit this year without new support.
However, there were levels of optimism in the survey with about half (51%) stated they were confident about prospects for the sector over the next year – more than three times the number who felt that way in November last year (14%).
Hospitality supply chain businesses on verge of collapse without immediate support The UK’s hospitality sector supply chain is facing devastation with 324,000 jobs at risk unless businesses receive immediate financial support from the Government, new research reveals.
Trade body UKHospitality’s Supplier Alliance research highlights the impact of the Covid crisis on the hospitality supply chain and the lack of financial support that has been received by businesses.
“It cannot have escaped many people over the past year that hospitality businesses have been completely devastated by the Covid crisis, says Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality. Much less visible, but by no means less terrible, has been the destruction heaped upon those businesses that supply restaurants, pubs, hotels and the entirety of hospitality.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has earmarked £5m to promote the return to central London’s hospitality, retail and cultural venues as soon as it is safe to do so.