Where have all the foreign workers gone?

Employers say staff from EU are not returning to former roles as UK eases Covid restrictions

Waitress takes an order in central London restaurant
(Image credit: CARL COURT/AFP via Getty Images)

Businesses across the UK are struggling to fill staff roles amid shortages of overseas workers triggered by the Covid-19 crisis and Brexit, industry experts are warning.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and recruitment firm Adecco say that employers are planning to hire at the fastest rate in eight years in anticipation of a post-pandemic boom. But while customers are keen to make up for lost time following the reopening of the hospitality and retail sectors in England and Wales, a “sharp decline” in the number of EU workers is “fuelling the risk of labour shortages”, The Guardian reports.

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 Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.