Michael O’Leary has criticised the UK government over its approach to foreign workers and urged it to take a more ‘practical, common sense’ approach to post-Brexit immigration policy.
The Ryanair boss said he could hire people from continental Europe for jobs that he could not fill with British workers, but was unable to get visas for them. This was contributing to disruption in air travel, he said.
O’Leary said: “I can hire thousands of people in Portugal, in Italy, France, Germany at exactly the same wages that I’m paying in the UK and I just can’t hire them in the UK at the moment.”
He told Radio 4: “And we have this bizarre situation at the moment that in the UK I can get visas to bring Moroccans to come in and work as cabin crew. But I can’t get visas for Portuguese or Italians or Slovakian youngsters. We just need a bit of more common sense and a practical approach to how we implement Brexit.”
He said introducing such visas would help ease the disruption being seen at some airports, and ease skill shortages in other areas.
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“There are not enough people in the UK willing to do these jobs… particularly during peak periods of the summer and airports in particular. Airport handling staff and airport security staff are really struggling to recruit, particularly in the south east, at airports like Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester.”
A government spokesperson responded: “Leaving the EU enabled us to introduce a points-based immigration system and we want to see employers make long-term investments in the UK’s domestic workforce, such as training, wage increases and better career options, instead of relying on labour from abroad.”
O’Leary said that introducing more freedom of movement for EU workers across industries facing skills shortages would keep costs lower and prices down for consumers.
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He added: “It is simply not acceptable to turn around to the vast majority of the British people and say, with nobody to pick or to harvest the food, ’please pay 20% higher food prices’.”
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