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Jersey Hospitality Association Tuscany
2 La Fosse Tauraude St Ouen
JE32HS
29th January 2021
Dear Senator Pallett
The JHA is Jersey's independent trade association, with sole focus on the hospitality industry. The industry peaks annually at around 6400 staff.
In July 2018, the hospitality industry had 1633 active seasonal permissions in place. Coupled with the industry decrease in June 2020 of 1670, the industry is severely affected by seasonal staff, and those who move into year-round positions from there.
In January 2021, Brexit finally came into force, and the new immigration policy became active. This is the biggest shift and control factor we have seen changed in decades. Access to free moving individuals who can come into the island without a border permission being granted reduced from a possible 510 million people down to 66 million. This is a reduction of 88% of our available labour market and will present acute problems moving forward.
Immigration policy
Under the new immigration policy, individuals are granted a permit and border permission via a visa to enter and work in the island for a fixed term, currently either 9 months for early career positions, or up to 3 years for more senior positions. This removes the possibility of them gaining residential status or contributing to the total population.
This process will have a significant impact on the way people move in and out of the island, and in essence achieves the goals desired by many for a population policy.
Underlying concerns
While there is a belief by many that the level of population increases we have seen are not sustainable, we must be careful not to go from a position of very low controls, to turning all the control points to a maximum position.
It has been evidenced that some net migration is required to sustain the island, and an ability to control this must be in place. There must also be a fair distribution across all industries in their ability to allow staff to make the permanent move into the island.
Our current population control has not had the desired affect when paired with a lax border position, however, with the ability to increase or decrease the level of current control, paired with the new highly restrictive border control, I believe we will see an impact on net migration.
The concern is, if you have two control points, you do not change them both simultaneously. If this is done, there is no clear way of understanding which variable has had the necessary control, and which is just a compounding factor.
The JHA would recommend we allow the impact of Brexit to be understood and use the current population policy to adjust where necessary from there. Before an additional new point of control is created, the full impact of the border change must be understood and documented.
The Island relies on a workforce that is able to bring in outside skillsets, and for hospitality that is a transient workforce. We also must be clear that to attract needed senior staff, the process cannot be over onerous as this could have a permanently damaging effect on attracting the right staff that cannot be sourced locally.
It is wholly necessary to have those from the CTA able to help provide essential resource for the island as we move forward.
We are going into 2021 after a globally changing pandemic, and a CTA changing split from the EU. It would be an inappropriate and risky move to make these changes without full understanding of the new landscape we are navigating in. Changes that do damage are unlikely to be reversed in time to save what would be needed. Guernsey has seen this problem happen to the point that they struggle to find staff for the industry over there.
We do not want to risk poaching between local venues or let the product and guest safety suffer due to an inability to resource businesses correctly. Also, forcing additional staff turnover has a logical impact on productivity. Improving productivity is vital for the economy going forward and is an aim of the States.
This policy decision will be crucial to the future face of the island and needs to be carefully aligned with any desires to preserve, maintain, or develop our hospitality and tourism scene. The quality of life to islanders is linked with this and we would like that to be carefully considered as decisions are made. While it is clear there is political and public desire to achieve a control over the migration into the island, the immigration position will provide exactly the level of control that is desired. When the population policy was first discussed, it was pre COVID and Brexit. We find ourselves in a different position now, and this must be factored into any decisions made.
Kind Regards
Simon Soar Chief Executive