The Oban Times and The Lochaber Times have launched our 'Invest in the West' campaign focusing on the problems faced by communities, businesses and services here, and asking how decision-makers in UK, Scottish and local governments are solving them.
One Argyll firm, Kames Fish Farming near Kilmelford, said: "Finding staff with available/affordable housing is our biggest problem. Recruitment has been even more difficult since Brexit, and it is difficult to bring across skilled workers from Europe and overseas. When we do get people, they can’t get housing."
In a previous story, we asked Scotland's First Minister, SNP MSP, Humza Yousaf how the Scottish Government is helping solve a shortage of rural affordable housing. This week, we focus on the staff shortage, and ask the UK Government Minister for Scotland, Conservative MP John Lamont, if Brexit was to blame, and when things might improve.
Mr Lamont told us: "I was lucky enough to serve in the Scottish Affairs Committee before my time as a minister, and one of the inquiries we had was labour shortages in Scotland. There already were challenges about depopulation in Scotland long before Brexit, long before Covid.
"One of the bits of evidence we received was from the two main agencies that bring migrant workers into the UK. When they were asking the workers where did they want to be based, very often the last place on the list was Scotland.
"Now that is the big challenge. How do we make Scotland a more attractive place for workers coming to the UK to base themselves?
"What happened with Brexit, and particularly Covid, was a large number of the workers who had previously been working in many of our communities went back home.
"At the same time, places like Poland and Romania are becoming much more prosperous compared to what they were 10, 15, 20 years ago, when many people from those countries came to the UK in the first place. Understandably many of them never came back after the pandemic.
"We've now had the war in Ukraine, which has resulted in that source of labour drying up. I would argue Covid and the war in Ukraine have a much bigger impact on the movement of workers around the European Union coming to Scotland compared to Brexit."
Brexit has led to a shortfall of 330,000 people in the UK labour force, mostly in the low-skilled economy, research by the thinktanks Centre for European Reform and UK in a Changing Europe found this year.
The post-Brexit points system immigration system has, by design, made it more difficult for those without qualifications to move to the UK to work.
The system came into force in January 2021 and by June 2022 there was a shortfall of 460,000 EU workers, the study said. The arrival of 130,000 non-EU workers cushioned the blow but did not close the gap, leaving 'large shortfalls' in six ket sectors, including hospitality and food, and wholesale and retail, it said.
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