Don’t blame Brexit for our lack of workers

It has become received wisdom that Brexit has condemned Britain to chronic labour shortages. Many of the migrant workers who used to staff our hotels and restaurants, install our bathrooms and look after our children, returned home during lockdown and never returned. Sometimes that is blamed on the end of free movement, other times more generally on Brexit Britain somehow having become less attractive in the global competition for people.

It is a notion which is easily disproved, however, by a simple figure published this week by the Office for National Statistics which went woefully under-reported. There has been no drop in migrant workers in Britain. On the contrary, there were 6.3 million foreign-born workers at the last count – a record high. This amounts to an extraordinary 19 per cent of all workers – higher even than the United States. We don’t hear much debate about these numbers. Perhaps that’s because, since Brexit, immigration has become less controversial – as one would expect with the system now being under democratic control.