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Wanted temporarily in post-Brexit Britain: 800 foreign butchers to slaughter some 120,000 pigs
Amy Cheng 15 hrs ago
Britain will issue up to 800 temporary visas to foreign butchers in an effort to alleviate a labor shortage in the pork industry that has already led to the culling of some 6,000 healthy pigs.
The stopgap measure was crafted in response to “a unique range of pressures on the pig sector over recent months,” said George Eustice, a British minister in charge of food, in a statement. Among the causes he mentioned were the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic and import restrictions China has placed on British suppliers.
The shortage of slaughterhouse workers has created what Britain’s pig lobby calls its biggest crisis in over two decades, with roughly 120,000 pigs waiting to be slaughtered. An estimated 15,000 extra pigs are added to farms across the country each week, putting greater strain on farmers struggling to find enough space and feed for their herd.
Slaughterhouse jobs tend to be tedious and physically demanding. In Britain, such work was largely carried out by migrant labor from Eastern Europe, who reportedly constituted up to 80 percent of the country’s slaughterhouse workforce. But many workers have returned home as a result of covid travel restrictions, while Britain’s departure from the European Union has curbed the ability for new E.U. migrants to easily take up jobs there. ..
Wanted temporarily in post-Brexit Britain: 800 foreign butchers to slaughter some 120,000 pigs
Amy Cheng 15 hrs ago
Britain will issue up to 800 temporary visas to foreign butchers in an effort to alleviate a labor shortage in the pork industry that has already led to the culling of some 6,000 healthy pigs.
The stopgap measure was crafted in response to “a unique range of pressures on the pig sector over recent months,” said George Eustice, a British minister in charge of food, in a statement. Among the causes he mentioned were the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic and import restrictions China has placed on British suppliers.
The shortage of slaughterhouse workers has created what Britain’s pig lobby calls its biggest crisis in over two decades, with roughly 120,000 pigs waiting to be slaughtered. An estimated 15,000 extra pigs are added to farms across the country each week, putting greater strain on farmers struggling to find enough space and feed for their herd.
Slaughterhouse jobs tend to be tedious and physically demanding. In Britain, such work was largely carried out by migrant labor from Eastern Europe, who reportedly constituted up to 80 percent of the country’s slaughterhouse workforce. But many workers have returned home as a result of covid travel restrictions, while Britain’s departure from the European Union has curbed the ability for new E.U. migrants to easily take up jobs there. ..
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