Why is the lack of seasonal agricultural workers considered a problem given the high unemployment rate in every Western country?

Question

Currently farmers in Western countries are warning governments that without foreign workers their fields will be impossible to harvest:

“We are in need of a lot of foreign workers,” Eystein Ruud, a greenhouse farm owner and chairman of the Norwegian Horticultural Association, told The Globe and Mail. “If we cannot get these workers in the coming weeks, our farmers won’t risk putting a lot of plants in the soil. That may affect the food supply.”

At the same time Western nations are about to face unprecedented levels of unemployment due to the COVID-related shutdowns. On the face of it, this seems like a perfect match - people who lost their jobs could now work their local fields, earning a salary and supplying much needed food for the nation. So why is this considered a problem, rather than a blessing in disguise? Shouldn't governments be happy they have job openings for the unemployed?

I do understand that working the fields is difficult and only young people could do it, but currently a lot of young people lack a job too, so that looks like a manageable problem.

Answer 1

I think these countries are in fact approaching this as a problem that has an obvious solution, as you suggest. The issue lies, however, with convincing their populace to work these seasonal jobs, and the inherent nature of seasonal agricultural work.

Firstly, the levels of unemployment are not necessarily going to be as bad as you might think, at least in some countries. Many western countries, including Norway, which you mention, and later, the UK, have implemented schemes which will allow companies to keep employees who have been furloughed due to the crisis on the payroll by covering a large portion of their wages. These schemes don't stop claimants from taking another job, at least in the UK's case, but potentially reduce the need for them to do so.

Secondly, the nature of this work means that for this to be a long-term job choice, workers need to be flexible and able to travel around the country. The BBC points out that

One reason overseas workers are recruited for these picking roles is that farmers require temporary, flexible workers who will move around the country following the crops. It is often difficult for local people to fill these roles as they are extremely busy for a short space of time - for example, two months to pick apples - with no work for the rest of the year.

So while it might be easy to find workers in one area of the country, it is currently infeasible given the COVID-19 crisis for workers to travel around the country as previously. Therefore, a much larger number of local workers need to be found in order to meet with local demand, rather than smaller groups of seasonal workers meeting the demand nationally.

Additionally, western Europeans are unused to this sort of work. According to the Independent:

It's fair to say that British workers have turned their noses up at seasonal farm work in recent years, perhaps partly due to the availability of other, more secure jobs in more comfortable surroundings.

"It's hard work and the Eastern Europeans are experienced at what they do," says Oliver Shooter, owner of AE Lenton, which runs a group of farms between Skegness and Boston in Lincolnshire, the centre of England's vegetable production.

"It's not rocket science but it is quite a skilled job that these guys do," he says. A top picker needs to know and apply supermarkets' exacting standards for exactly how fruit and veg must look, as well as how to cut it and pack it. For that they'll earn £12 an hour if they're good. Many farms also provide free or subsidised accommodation.

The seasonal workers that farms usually rely on, that know their trade and are experienced are unable to be used, so farmers are again being forced to engage a larger workforce than normal, in order to achieve a similar standard of work. This will, of course, entail higher costs, a longer training period, and presumably, a lower yield as mistakes are made.

Governments are trying to deal with this problem by pushing the solution you suggest - the Independent reports again:

So acute is the need that the government is reportedly readying its own "Pick for Britain" campaign taking inspiration from the Land Army that tilled the fields during the Second World War.

In Norway, the government has introduced a scheme which will encourage employees laid off by their employer to work in agricultural roles:

New legislation means that if a worker is laid off and takes up an agricultural role, he or she will be able to earn both a salary from the farmer as well as half his or her unemployment benefit.

It's not so much that the solution to the problem isn't obvious, it's that due to a combination of the nature of seasonal agricultural work, and the complications introduced by the current crisis, the problem is harder to solve than at first glance.

Answer 2

• There are significant efforts to recruit unemployed or underemployed locals for seasonal farm work.
• In many cases seasonal farm work is actually skilled work, at least if it is to be done quickly and correctly (i.e. pick only the ripe fruit, not all of it). While that can be learned, teaching requires formal or more likely informal instruction. It won't be possible to exchange a large part of the workforce at the same time.
  • Agriculture might be hesitant to take on loads of newbies and train them if they might disappear in a few weeks. Many distancing and lockdown measures are only valid for a few weeks as of now, even if an extension seems probable.
• There are anecdotal reports that workers in western industrialized countries don't like hard, badly paid manual labor if they can help it. And it would be bad for the total economy to channel university students or skilled workers from other sectors into agriculture.

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Follow-Up: There are news reports now that both German and Eastern European government want to enable the travel of seasonal agricultural workers with some quarantine safeguards. Seems these workers are essential enough to both economies.

Answer 3

Lower Salary requests:

Seasonal workers at the end of the season might go back to their country where there's a lower cost of living (at least for now).

Furthermore, if they have to support a family, or save to buy a home, it is probably still at the prices of the country of origin, and therefore they are probably willing to accept lower salaries.

Lack of Knowledge of Labour rights:

Local workers know the local laws better, and in cases of abuse they might know how to defend themselves or they might know where to find support. Local workers are more likely to know each other, and support each other. They are also more likely to organize themselves or join a union.

Summing up the two things: It is evident that migrant workers are often isolated, and, knowing almost nothing of the local laws, are easier to exploit.

Answer 4

I would dispute all the premises of the question. Until now, there are no unprecedented levels of unemployment due to COVID19-related measures across the Western world. The only country where I have heard that the lockdowns resulted in immediate massive unemployment is the US.

By contrast, many European countries had higher level of unemployment (as defined, e.g., by the ILO) to begin with but haven't seen a huge surge in people looking for work, instead electing to put temporary measures in place to bridge the gap in other ways (subsidies to companies so that they make payroll while putting employees on furlough, relaxed rules for sick days, etc.)

Incidentally, most countries haven't shutdown their economy entirely, only physical shops, bars, restaurants and other venues where many people congregate. That leaves large parts of the economy running, at least in part. Even a partial shutdown, together with the uncertainty and other restrictions will result in a recession and an increase in unemployment but these effects are never immediate in European economies.

While unemployment hasn't necessarily surged, there are still many people who are underemployed: people who are keeping their job but are on furlough and have time on their hand, independent contractors and temp workers, shop and business owners, people who were about to enter the job market or left/lost their job recently, students whose school has closed, etc. They could possibly fill the gap.

But the other premise is wrong too. As pointed out in other answers, governments have, in fact, been actively trying to match them to these jobs, e.g. in Germany, in France, in the UK and in Norway. And announcing very publicly that there is a problem with missing foreign workers and painting this work as a way to safeguard the food supply is part of a strategy to achieve that. Otherwise, people might not even think about what is otherwise a rather unattractive job far away from their residence.

Answer 5

Well, first of all, a far more effective solution would be to send low-risk incarcerated offenders out into the fields. This would help to reduce overcrowding in incarcerated populations (lowering the transmission rate of Covid-19 there), could be easily justified as part of the prisoners' reparations to society, and rewarded with reduced sentences or increased privileges. Win-win for everyone involved.

There are a number of problems with trying to entice normal citizens in industrialized societies out to work in the agriculture sector.

• Most citizens in industrialized nations would object to that work for egoic reasons. They view themselves as white collar or service workers, and cannot stomach the idea of hard, sweaty, dirty, physical labor. They might do it on a limited scale for patriotic reasons (the iconic 'victory garden' model of WWII), but not as part of a faceless horde sent out to pick grapes or harvest wheat for someone else.
• Most citizens in industrialized nations are unsuited to the work. They are not physically fit, can not tell a weed from a stalk of grain, and are unaccustomed to the vagrant lifestyle most agricultural workers live. Doing this kind of work would exhaust them quickly, lowering their immune responses and leaving them exposed to a host of illnesses (from heatstroke and heart attacks to the common flu and Covid-19) that would render them useless in the fields and further stress the medical system
• Most citizens in industrialized nations — at least the ones most likely to respond to this request — are urban, far from the fields they would be asked to work. This necessitates mass transportation, temporary camps to house them in different locales, and other activities that would force these people into large groups and unsanitary condition, increasing the spread of Covid-19.

And let's not forget that while this tactic may have been used effectively during the New Deal to put citizens back to work, it was also used by Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and other authoritarian regimes. It is a system that seems reasonable on the face of it, but is particularly easy to abuse. Do we want to come out of this crisis with new laws mandating that homeless populations, people on court-ordered drug rehabilitation, or people on welfare must become seasonal agricultural workers; or maybe new laws in the Deep South that funnel black citizens into jails so they can be sent out to pick cotton, like the old days? We should take a pause for thought before going down this road.

Answer 6

This question's premise is fundamentally flawed because it ignores a simple fact about agricultural work:

Local workers don't want to do it.

The reasons behind this are numerous, but the primary two are:

• Agricultural work is seen as being "below" locals' social status.
• Agricultural work is seen as disproportionately difficult for the remuneration provided.

These are social and economic issues, not political ones.

Answer 7

On top of all the other reasons, employers don't like to hire in regular positions people who took "nonstandard"/gig jobs. So, if you're a receptionist but suddenly you put farm work on your CV, you may have trouble finding employment later on anything else but temp farm jobs. Of course, these habits (of the employers) can change, but there's a chicken and egg problem here with such change happening in [Western] society.

Also most [Western] people (big surprise) actually prefer regular jobs, if possible, as opposed to "gigs" (in agriculture or elsewhere)

Amidst all the hype about the choice and flexibility of the ‘gig economy’, new research from the University of Auckland suggests most people prefer a regular nine-to-five-style job.

Moreover, when people start working in so-called gig jobs, their chances of switching to a conventional job later are surprisingly low. [...]

The difference was more dramatic for people with high and low levels of education compared to medium levels.

For example, she says, highly educated people who had a standard job at one point in time were nearly eight times more likely to also have a standard job at a later point than those who had had a nonstandard job.

Also

“For a long time there’s been this belief that people, especially young people, prefer the freedom – and lack of office politics – of nonstandard work. But our study shows that most young people – like older people – actually want regular jobs,” she says.

Answer 8

Another problem seems to be that supermarkets drive food waste as this report shows...and offers some great longer-term solutions.

But in the short-term, the government could choose to support small farmers in getting people to work on their farms e.g. with the skilled Romanian workers managing teams of less-skilled British workers on farms who would in turn learn new skills from Romanian workers. Whilst this might not be anyone's first choice of a job, it fills an important gap and could even highlight the real importance of such skilled work in future. And whilst it's not ideal for people to be moving around the country in a pandemic, there is no problem in doing so for essential work (which this clearly is). There probably needs to be more flexibility about working hours too, so that people can work there for 2 or 3 days per week instead of a full week. Another possibility, arrange communal transport for anyone close enough to work so that they don't have to stay on the farm (not sure why it is essential to live on the farm)? And if the government could agree to furlough people for 6 months after the seasonal work ends, that might just encourage people to take up the jobs. In fact, it would be one way to support seasonal work generally (Sweden offers 80% of salary as unemployment benefit for first 3 months of unemployment).

Just a few thoughts anyway....

Answer 9

Same data as other answers, but more abstractly...

Urban Sprawl -- unlike say 1800, modern communities have been either planned to, (or permitted to), develop in a way that drives small local farms out of business in favor of large farms near and far. Hence the existing domestic pool of needed workers live relatively far from the farms, and the means of commuting locally available workers to the farm are insufficient and expensive. "It's the commute."

Big agriculture rose up in part from a history of Slavery, Peonage, Debt Bondage, Day Labor, et al -- so that large modern farms have grown to rely upon artificially inexpensive labor, not a living wage for a local worker. Big agriculture also externalizes (i.e. nationalizes) some of its costs, so that the grocery store price of a banana never includes its full share of the cost of a national army or navy with which to prevent foreign pickers from negotiating to raise their own wages, nor the infrastructure costs of superhighways with which to nationally distribute those bananas; and on a secondary level, such prices don't include the costs of the consequential harms done by having highways (e.g. pollution, homogenized culture, etc.), or by nationalizing corporate warfare, (e.g. its induced grudges can become kindling for terrorism, general warfare, etc.). The resulting globalism provides an artificially impoverished environment from which to import inexpensive migrant labor, but its supply chains are vulnerable to pandemics.

The commuting advantage of migrant labor is that replaces a back and forth daily commute from the worker's home to a farm to a single seasonal commute, and the migrant worker need only commute from a some makeshift dorm or barracks on the farm itself to that farm's nearby crops.

The cost of living differential between a migrant worker's homeland and a local worker's home is substantial. A local US worker with a high cost of living would find it difficult to get by on seasonal picker wages, whereas it's not unusual for a Jamaican migrant with a lower cost of living to send wages home with which to support a fairly large family.