Government’s external recruitment soars as businesses struggle

Wednesday 25 July 2018

The States had 100% of their applications for non-local staff permissions approved in the past year, as private sector businesses continue to struggle under a work permit clampdown as part of a bid to curb immigration.

Latest Population Office figures show that the government made no applications for permits for registered staff, but every one of their 38 applications for licensed employees – ‘essential’ non-local recruits allowed to buy, sell or lease any property – succeeded in 2017.

And that number could be smashed this year. Between January and March, the States were given permission for a further 19 licensed workers – half the total recruited the previous year. 

No registered staff permit applications were made during that period, but a recent Freedom of Information request said that 58 non-local staff joined in the first five months of this year. That means that 39 external newcomers were recruited in April and May alone. The proportion that are deemed ‘essential’ remains unclear, however.  

No other work sector – including finance, the island’s largest industry – had 100% of its work permit requests accepted throughout the year. 

Pictured: The retail sector saw around 4% of its total staff cut since 2016 due to work permit revocations. The public sector, which is a similar site, endured around just 1%.

The news comes at a time where the government’s increasing use of external recruitment for senior positions faces increasing scrutiny following the appointment of new Chief Executive Charlie Parker.

He joined the 7,890-employee-strong organisation with an ambition to downsize the public sector while restructuring it, and has since taken on a number of UK consultants on top public sector pay levels to assist with that process.

The public sector transformation has involved the appointment of a number of ‘Director Generals’ to head newly-created departments – many of whom were recruited from the UK through a dedicated website selling the benefits of living and working on the island.

The Health Department last year launched an online recruitment campaign entitled ‘Care Rediscovered’ on which overseas health professionals were offered a relocation package of £8,000 to relocate to Jersey. Education has also looked further afield for staff, with a vacancy for a new Deputy Head Teacher at Victoria College advertised to UK talent via TES. An £8,000 transfer package was also offered, as well as help with covering UK house sale legal fees. 

Pictured: New States CEO Charlie Parker has recruited a number of UK consultants to assist with his restructuring of the civil service.

In May, Mr Parker announced the creation of a new service called ‘Welcome Jersey’. Led by former States HR Chief Officer Richard Stevens, the service will be dedicated to supporting those moving to Jersey from abroad to work. It remains unclear how this will fit into population planning, with the States Assembly still yet to agree a sustainable policy for managing inward migration.

But this comes at a time when other sectors are being asked to pay more for employment licenses, which, in some instances, have pushed up costs for some businesses into the hundreds or even thousands. 

Others are struggling after having their employment licenses stripped from them entirely – a move that has disproportionately hit the agriculture and fishing community. Employment permission revocations have lost the sector, which is one of Jersey’s key industries, nearly 16% of their workforce since 2016. This was coupled with a sharp downturn in the amount of seasonal permits being requested - 215 in the first quarter of 2017 compared to just 32 in the same period this year.

323 non-local employees have been cut from wholesale and retail, constituting around 4% of the total staff within the sector. Meanwhile, just 69 employment licenses (1%) have been taken from the similarly-sized public sector.

Pictured: The work permit clampdown disproportionately affected the agriculture and fishing sector.

The Jersey Hospitality Association have complained of particular problems for their sector, which had 169 work permits withdrawn – a forced downsizing of around 3%.

Population Office 'constraints' on new staff were cited as one of the causes of a popular local pizza chain having to close one of its stores last year.  This year, the owners of two new coffee shops – Cargo and Lockes – reported recruitment difficulties. Both were denied permissions for non-local staff and struggled to source suitably qualified Jersey people.

Cargo’s owners Liam Montgomery and Selda Kumcur told Connect Magazine that they had to “turn away people who were perfect fits” because they weren’t entitled to work on the island. Instead, they had to train someone unqualified – “a waste of time when you want to be able to start the business.”

Drew Locke of Lockes, meanwhile, said that he and his wife and co-owner, Ella, often had to put in 16-hour days since opening and, on one day in their first week, had to stop serving food due to kitchen staff shortages.

Pictured: The owners of new coffee shop Cargo said that recruiting for baristas and kitchen staff was difficult without employment licenses.

New Chief Minister Senator John Le Fondré is set to bring forward a new policy to address Jersey’s population – now 105,500 and set to be three times the size of Guernsey’s in 40 years’ time – after Brexit hits in March 2019. 

He scrapped his predecessor’s plan, which included proposals for time-limited visas and which was due to be debated this year, last week after bowing to pressure from business leaders. They argued that they were already having recruitment issues, and that making any changes to how they do so should wait until the full implications of the UK leaving the European Union are known.