Brexit causes ‘severe’ drop in jobs for Britons in EU, says travel industry
UK withdrawal from the European Union has caused a “severe” slump in the number of seasonal jobs for young Britons in the EU member countries due to high costs of hiring UK staff in restaurants and resort jobs across Europe, travel industry leaders have said.
According to a survey carried out by Seasonal Businesses in Travel (SBIT), there has been a 75 percent drop in British hospitality staff going to France for the winter season since 2018-19, while the same workers going to Austria experienced a 95 percent slump.
The SBIT, which represents UK’s outbound travel sector, has called on the government to consider agreeing a new Youth Mobility Visa with EU partners to simplify the employment of the young Britons in the EU working sector.
“When people talk about labor shortages they usually think about empty shelves in the UK, but the outbound tourist industry has been severely impacted by these new barriers to hiring UK workers in European resorts,” said Charles Owen, managing director of the SBIT group.
Appearing before the UK Trade and Business Commission on Thursday, travel industry leaders also raised the alarm of a huge loss of vital opportunities for young UK citizens.
“Not only will this dent our GDP, but it severely reduces opportunities for young people, for employment, experience and skills training. The government must make changes to the EU-UK trade deal to address this,” Owen added.
Labour MP Paul Blomfield, who chaired Thursday’s session, called on the government to “listen to industry experts, and offer workable changes to the problems they caused for the tourism sector,” adding that the government is “neglecting the interests of British workers who want to take up jobs in other European countries.”
The development comes as the UK experiences a major slump in the number of visitors to the country after the pandemic. According to Tom Jenkins, a top tourism expert, the reduction in the UK tourism industry is to be blamed on the government’s new plan, under which, EU citizens can no longer travel to the UK using their ID cards since 1 October.
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