Workers on the march

THE CHANCEEU to take a summer holiday after the long lockdown is very appealing. So Bartleby was excited to book rooms in a pub-cum-hotel in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales in July. Not long after the booking, however, the manager called to warn that the restaurant and bar would be closed on the Wednesday night. “As you probably know”, she said, “it is impossible to find staff at the moment.”The British hospitality sector has relied on overseas employees and is affected by Brexit as well as covid-19. The same is true of construction. Since 2017 the industry has seen a 4% decline in British-born workers and a 42% fall in those from the . Many foreigners returned home for the pandemic, which may mean 750,000 fewer total workers are available than in 2019, according to Michael O’Connor and Jonathan Portes of the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence, a research outfit.