Who’s next? Retail boss Simon Wolfson urges Government to learn lessons of truck driver shortage
Next boss Lord Wolfson has urged ministers to relax immigration rules to alleviate a crisis in “warehouses, restaurants, hotels, care homes and many seasonal industries.”
The retail titan said that the current shortage of truck drivers was “foreseen, and widely predicted” and said Government needed to learn from its failure to act.
The firm upgraded its outlook for the year yesterday but did warn staffing difficulties could result in a “degradation” of services including its 24-hour delivery service.
The retail bellwether has largely ridden out the current driver shortage but Wolfson said the three-month visa scheme cooked up by ministers last week, allowing EU drivers entry until Christmas eve, will not be sufficient for the rest of the economy.
In recent weeks hospitality and manufacturing bosses amongst others have warned of a lack of qualified staff.
“We need a demand led system. The current system clearly isn’t working. And we need a better one,” he said.
Many have placed the blame on the UK’s departure from the EU, but the Brexit-backing Wolfson hit back at critics who say the current labour shortage is a case of the chickens coming home to roost.
“I don’t think [the staffing crisis] is what we signed up for. We signed up for having control over our immigration policy. The only decision was that our British government should decide what the immigration policy should be,” he told Morning Wire yesterday.
“My worry is that if this discussion turns into an argument about Brexit, we are going to end up with the same divisive debate we had in the run up to that vote.”
Next reported profit of £346m in the six months to July, up 5.9 per cent on the same period in 2019, with the firm continuing to defy high street gravity.
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