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£60 million of produce rotted
Record Vacancies
Vacancies across the UK economy hit record highs in 2022. Construction had 38,000 vacancies a month, and wholesale and retail job adverts ran 74% above pre-pandemic levels.
Health And Care
Health and care was in an especially bad spot. An aging population was already raising demand for workers, and the pandemic added treatment backlogs, long-term sickness, and severe pressure on existing staff. The government relaxed visa rules, and care workers became eligible for the visa for the first time in 2022. Health and care visas nearly tripled, from 47,000 to 146,000 by 2023.
Outside The Workforce
Britain also has millions of working-age people outside the labor force and a growing number of young people not in employment, education, or training.
Why does fruit rot when pickers are short?
Soft fruit like strawberries and raspberries ripens over days, not weeks, and each plant has to be picked repeatedly as fruit reaches the right stage. Machines tend to bruise delicate berries, so most of this work is still done by hand. Ripe fruit left unpicked spoils within days and can spread mold to the fruit around it. A harvest window is short, so a farm that cannot staff a few key weeks loses the crop outright.
Why did UK vacancies hit record highs in 2022?
The Office for National Statistics recorded job vacancies peaking at roughly 1.3 million in spring 2022, the highest since its series began in 2001. Economies reopened after the pandemic and demand for workers jumped. At the same time, the workforce was smaller because some older workers had retired early, and some people had left the labor force with long-term illness. The end of EU free movement in 2021 also cut the supply of workers for sectors that had relied on it.
How does an aging population raise demand for care?
People need more help with daily living as they get older, and the need rises steeply after age 85. The Office for National Statistics projected that the number of UK residents aged 85 and over would nearly double over about 25 years, reaching around 3 million. Care is labor-intensive, since it depends on people and cannot easily be replaced by machines. That makes the number of care jobs rise roughly in line with the number of older people.
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