Coming off the Polish labour addiction 13 February, 2008
Posted by Rick in Uncategorized.trackback
Are British organisations becoming addicted to the plentiful supply of skilled but relatively cheap eastern European labour? And if so, will there be withdrawal symptoms when the supply dries up?
City University’s Dr Roland Petchey warns that pay levels for doctors, nurses and other health workers are beginning to rise in Poland, making the option of working in the UK less attractive. He told the Health Service Journal:
There has been a tendency for workforce planners to focus on the here and now. There hasn’t been quite as much strategic thinking about where the future workforce is going.
In other words, managers and HR professionals have been enjoying an easy life, not having to work hard to get good recruits, without thinking through what they will do when the Eastern Europeans start going home.
Anecdotally, I have heard similar concerns raised by some in the private sector. The migration of labour from eastern Europe was only ever going to be a temporary solution to skills shortages. As the economy of Poland and other new EU countries start to catch up with the rest of Europe, the attractions of working abroad will diminish.
If, as Dr Petchey seems to imply, HR managers have not prepared for this near-certainty, that is a far more significant criticism than some of the other rubbish we have been reading over recent weeks.
Coming down from an addiction to cheap, readily available, skilled labour will be a tough process for many organisations. If they want to avoid that cold turkey feeling, they will need to start planning for it now.
[...] like invest in skills training to bring less skilled employees up to scratch. Many employers are unprepared for the disappearance of this able and willing labour pool. We may yet find ourselves in the [...]